"In other words, the trade union flagrantly violated the democratic rights of the working class by colluding with the Democratic Party to impose sweeping, unconstitutional cuts to worker pensions."
THE OBAMA ASSAULT
ON OUR PENSIONS
BIGGER PROFITS FOR
HIS WALL STREET DONORS IF PENSIONS ARE SLASHED
“Feinberg, who as the
Obama administration’s “pay tsar” rubber- stamped
multimillion-dollar executive bonuses to Wall Street banks bailed out with taxpayer funds,
will now be given power to slash workers’ benefits at his discretion.”
Chicago pension cuts struck down by court
Chicago pension cuts struck down by court
By Alexander Fangmann
27 July 2015
On Friday, July 24 Cook County Circuit Court Judge Rita M. Novak struck down a state law that cut pensions for Chicago municipal workers and laborers. In her ruling, which was widely expected, Novak cited the May 8 Illinois Supreme Court decision that declared the 2013 law cutting pensions for state employees to be unconstitutional, calling it a “crystal-clear direction.”The Supreme Court’s decision upheld the principle clearly stated in the Illinois Constitution, that pension benefits “shall not be diminished or impaired.” Rejecting the state’s argument that the state’s “police powers” allowed it to cut pensions in order fund necessary government services, the court found that economic fluctuations were anticipated at the time the constitutional provision was added, and that “the law was clear that the promised benefits would therefore have to be paid and that the responsibility for providing the state’s share of the necessary funding fell squarely on the legislature’s shoulders.”
Nevertheless, even after this decision, the city pressed on with its own defense of the state’s move to cut city pensions. Chicago corporation counsel Stephen Patton argued that the law amounted to a “massive net benefit” because it would have placed direct responsibility for guaranteeing pension benefits onto the city itself, rather than on the pension fund—a nominally separate entity—and would have ramped up funding. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, as well as other city spokespersons, claimed the state’s actions were intended to “preserve and protect the pensions.”
Emanuel, President Barack Obama's former chief of staff and a long-time Democratic operative, has peddled this concept, that cuts are necessary in order to “save” the pensions, since the beginning of his tenure as mayor. As he put it, “We have to do the tough things, the necessary things so people can know that they’re going to have a retirement, which they didn’t know before.” In other words, there was an implicit claim that without the city taking charge of cutting benefits, the pension systems would become insolvent and the city would be under no obligation to do anything about it.
Novak’s ruling rejected this logic, saying that it “does not survive scrutiny.” Her ruling stated: “Pension benefits cannot be netted against funding schemes, regardless of any salutary outcomes they may have. To do so would render the rights guaranteed by the pension protection clause illusory.”
The law would have essentially nullified the pension protection clause because any “guarantee” of funding in the pension cutting law could be changed at the whim of a later session of the state legislature. Such a move could leave workers with diminished pensions and insolvent pension funds, a clear violation of the constitution under any plausible interpretation.
In fact, according to Novak, the idea that the pension systems could become insolvent and workers could lose their pensions constitutes a fundamental distortion of the meaning of the pension clause.
“Contrary to the city’s argument, it is not the Pension Code that creates the contractual relationship. Rather, if the state or municipal employer creates a pension system, the contractual relationship that is mandated derives from the Constitution and so does the ‘enforceable obligation’ to pay the benefits.”
Judge Novak also rejected the argument that the Chicago pension cuts were fundamentally different than the state-level pension cuts on the grounds that Emanuel had “negotiated” the cuts with 28 of the 31 unions representing municipal workers and laborers. She wrote that “The contention that labor unions, undisputedly acting outside the sphere of collective bargaining, may bind all members of the funds ignores the individual constitutional rights” of the affected workers.
She wrote, “There is no evidence that, in reaching an agreement with the city, the union officials followed union rules and bylaws in such a way as to bind their members as true agents. Nor is there evidence that the membership voted on the agreement.” Novak continued, saying “Additionally, there is no showing that the unions could have acted as agents of retired members while at the same time acting as representatives of active employees.”
In other words, the trade union flagrantly violated the democratic rights of the working class by colluding with the Democratic Party to impose sweeping, unconstitutional cuts to worker pensions.
While making no reference to this damning indictment, the unions cynically hailed the judge’s ruling as proof that workers can rely on the courts to defend their pensions. Roberta Lynch, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) said “All city residents can be reassured that the Constitution—our state’s highest law—means what it says and will be respected, while city employees and retirees can be assured that their modest retirement income is protected.”
While both the state and municipal pension cuts have now been thrown out, there is no guarantee that the Illinois Supreme Court will continue to issue decisions favorable to workers. Nor is a change to the state constitution ruled out, which might remove the pension protection clause entirely. One thing is absolutely certain, the state can rely on the trade unions to collaborate in any future effort to slash retiree benefits.
Contrary to AFSCME spokesman Anders Lindall’s call for Chicago “not to waste further time and taxpayer dollars on an appeal,” the city promised to appeal Novak’s decision. Corporation Counsel Patton said, “While we are disappointed by the trial court’s ruling, we have always recognized that this matter will ultimately be resolved by the Illinois Supreme Court.” He continued to hold that the law “saves these funds from insolvency and ensures that pensions that have been promised will be paid.”
The law had been expected to save the city approximately $10 billion in pension funding, primarily through the elimination of the three percent compounded annual increase and its replacement by a non-compounding annual increase of three percent or half the level of inflation, whichever was lower. Even then, no increases would have been made in 2017, 2019, and 2025. According to estimates, the average worker would have lost around 20 percent of the value of their pensions under the new formula.
Besides the change to the annual increase, the law would have also raised the retirement age, with workers under 45 forced to wait an extra five years to retire with full benefits, while those over 45 would have had to wait somewhat less. Mandatory employee contributions to the pension funds would have risen 29 percent, from 8.5 percent of wages to 11 percent. This increased contribution has been collected from workers since January 1.
The credit ratings agencies Moody’s and S&P both weighed in on the ruling, essentially saying that they expected this ruling following the Supreme Court decision in May and had already reduced Chicago’s credit rating accordingly. However, they promised to further reduce Chicago’s rating—already at junk status—if no headway was made on pension cuts.
Due to the refusal of all levels of government in Illinois to adequately contribute to the pension funds, it is expected that they will eventually pay out more in benefits than they are receiving in contributions. The Chicago municipal workers fund is expected to run out in 2026 without further increases in contributions, while the laborers fund is expected to become insolvent in 2029. While the total “unfunded liability” of both funds is around $7.85 billion, the combined net worth of just three of Illinois’ 18 billionaires—Ken Griffin, Sam Zell, and J.B. Pritzker—is more than $14 billion.
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY: BUILDING MEXICO’S
WELFARE STATE ON
OUR BACKS (they already get our jobs) AND
ASSAULTING THE
AMERICAN WORKER AND WORKERS’ PENSIONS TO PAY
FOR
MEXICO’S LOOTING!
“The summary of the proposal read: “Eliminates
constitutional protections for vested pension and retiree healthcare benefits
for current public employees, including teachers, nurses, and peace officers,
for future work performed.”
THE OBAMA PLAN: AS GENERATED FROM THE
ASSAULT OF DETROIT BY OBAMA’S CRONIES: CUT PENSIONS, AND WAGES AND BUILD THE
MEX WELFARE STATE AT THE SAME TIME!
“The assault on pensions enjoys the bipartisan support of
the entire political establishment, all the way to the White House. Behind the
scenes, the Obama Administration played a decisive role in pushing through the
Detroit bankruptcy.”
OBAMA AND HIS CHICAGO: SINKING IN A CESSPOOL
OF CORRUPTION!
THE
STAGGERING COST OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S AGENDA OF
BUILDING THE LA RAZA MEXICAN
WELFARE STATE on the BACKS OF
AMERICA’S LOOTED MIDDLE-CLASS:
“The lifetime costs of Social Security
and Medicare benefits of illegal immigrant beneficiaries of President Obama’s
executive amnesty would be well over a trillion dollars, according to Heritage
Foundation expert Robert Rector’s prepared testimony for a House panel obtained
in advance by Breitbart News.”
SOCIAL
SECURITY to VOTING ILLEGALS: The Obama – LA RAZA Conspiracy:
THE CONSPIRACY TO DESTROY THE AMERICAN
MIDDLE-CLASS: Unions Partner with Obama and His Wall Street Cronies
US Congress to vote on union-backed plan to cut
workers’ pensions
A bipartisan proposal has been added to the US
government funding bill now before Congress that would end 40 years of federal
law and sanction the reduction of pension payments to millions of retired
truckers, coal miners, supermarket, construction workers and other private
sector workers.
THE GOP AND CLOSET REPUBLICAN BARACK OBAMA SAY
THEY’RE
GOING TO GET TO WORK…. TO EXPAND OBAMA’S
ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN WORKER TO KEEP
WAGES
DEPRESSED WITH AMNESTY AND PENSION LOOTING!
OBAMANOMICS
FROM
THE HOPE & CHANGE & LOOTING” BY CRONIES CLOWN
THE
ENTIRE REASON BORDERS ARE SABOTAGED IS TO INVITE ENDLESS HORDES OF ILLEGALS
INTO OUR COUNTRY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED. THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS GETS THE
TAX BILLS FOR THEIR LOOTING, WELFARE, ANCHOR BABIES AND CRIME TIDAL WAVE!
The US ruling elite has reached a historical dead end. It
staggers from crisis to crisis, trying to put out fires with gasoline. This
pragmatic, shortsighted and parasitic approach to the crisis of the US economy
is expressive of the basic physiognomy of the financial elite. This is a social
layer that has amassed its wealth not through productive activity, but through
the looting of society: raiding pension funds, slashing wages, shutting down
industrial facilities and laying off workers.
OBAMA-CLINTONomics:
CEO PAY 300 TIMES GREATER
THAN WORKERS…. AMNESTY WILL MAKE THOSE FIGURES SOAR HIGHER!
“Historically
speaking, the rise in CEO compensation is tied to the global decline of
American capitalism and the increasing financialization of the economy. In 1965
the ratio of CEO to worker pay was 20 to 1. By 1978 the ratio had only grown to
30 to 1. It was only in the 90s that CEO pay reached absurd heights, rising
from 59 to 1 in 1989 to 376 to 1 in 2000.”
“In 2014 the
Russell Sage Foundation found that between 2003 and 2013, the median household
net worth of those in the United States fell from $87,992 to $56,335—a drop of
36 percent. …While the rich also saw their wealth drop during the recession,
they are more than making that money back. Between 2009 and 2012, 95 percent of
all the income gains in the US went to the top 1 percent. This is the most
distorted post-recession income gain on record.”
OBAMA-CLINTONomics: the final death of the
American middle-class
AMNESTY:
IT’S ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED.
"While it is
not spelt out directly, the BIS critique of the present policies is an
expression of the fact that, in the final analysis, the source of all forms of
profit is the surplus value extracted from the working class. Therefore, the
only way for capital to overcome its crisis and restore stability is a massive
increase in exploitation."
While the growth of social inequality has dramatically accelerated following the 2008 crash, this is a continuation of a decades-long process. The report notes, “Top 1 percent incomes grew by 80.0% from 1993 to 2014. This implies that top 1 percent incomes captured almost 60% of the overall economic growth of real incomes per family over the period 1993-2014.”
BANKSTER RAHM’S
VICTORY FOR HIS 1% CRONIES –FIRST ON THE RAHM
AGENDA: CUT PENSIONS, MORE “BAILOUTS” FOR CRONY BANKSTERS.
RAHM EMANUEL…. only
one more of Obama’s dirty crony banksters implementing OBAMANOMICS: loot from
the middle-class and hand it to the 1%!
“Mayor
Emanuel embodies the foulest characteristics of American politics in general
and the Democratic Party in particular. An operative in the Clinton
administration, Emanuel made millions as an investment banker before returning
to the White House as Obama’s chief of staff.”
TO WORK IN THE OBAMA
ADMINISTRATION, ONE NEEDS TO BE CONNECTED AND ACTIVELY SERVING OBAMA’S CRONY
BANKSTERS, or be a member of the MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA, as both
Obama’s Sec. of Labors, DHS Saldana, and Judge Sotomayor are!
Mayor
Emanuel embodies the foulest characteristics of American politics in general
and the Democratic Party in particular. An operative in the Clinton
administration, Emanuel made millions as an investment banker before returning
to the White House as Obama’s chief of staff.
As
mayor, Emanuel has pursued the same policies in Chicago as Obama on the
national level. He has presided over the closure of 50 schools, attacks on the
jobs and pensions of teachers and public employees, and a wave of police
violence against youth and working people. The money siphoned from essential
services has funded tax cuts and other subsidies for corporations and wealthy
investors.
The
Democratic and Republican politicians endlessly proclaim that there is no money
to meet pressing social needs. But the ranks of multi-millionaires and
billionaires continue to grow, along with the obscene levels of wealth they
control. These are the paymasters of both corporate-controlled parties.
BARACK OBAMA and his
BANKSTER BUDDY MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL IMPOSE OBAMANOMICS MARSHALL LAW ON ILLINOIS!
Obama at the national level and Emanuel in Chicago have
carried out equivalent attacks on the social rights of working people…. AS THEY
SERVE THEIR BANKSTER CRONIES!
ONE QUARTER OF
CONGRESS IS NOW THE “HISPANIC CAUCUS”, WHICH IS THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA
RAZA “THE RACE”
LA RAZA IS FUNDED BY
AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS AND OPERATES OUT OF THE OBAMA WHITE HOUSE UNDER CECILIA
MUNOZ.
LA RAZA SUPREMACIST Rep. Luis Gutierrez – The
Face of MEXICAN FASCISM
Even members of Congress have splintered into race-biased
groups, such as the Hispanic Caucus lead by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a known
anti-rule-of-law proponent of illegal immigration and original signatory to the
unconstitutional Kennedy/McCain "comprehensive amnesty" bill proposal
expected to cost taxpayers an estimated $7
to $36 trillion dollars over 30-years if approved. [5.2] (He is not alone in his
disdain or the Constitution and law or anti-Americanisms, given Democratic
House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi's blocking of all progress on the SAVE Act,
which would markedly end illegal immigration by forcing criminal employers to
quit hiring illegal aliens
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