STAGNANT WAGES and
the Dem Party’s obsession with open borders, amnesty and no damned legal need
apply!
THE LA RAZA
SUPREMACY PARTY for OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY, NON-ENFORCEMENT, NO E-VERIFY and no
Legal need apply!!!
The Democratic Party used to be the party of blue
collar America- supporting laws and policies that benefited that segment of the
U.S. population. Their leaders may still claim to be advocates for
American working families, however their duplicitous actions that betray
American workers and their families, while undermining national security and
public safety, provide clear and incontrovertible evidence of their lies…. MICHAEL
CUTLER …FRONTPAGE mag
As Pueblo teachers strike continues
Colorado Democrats slash
teacher and public employee pensions
By Will Morrow
12 May 2018
Late on Thursday night, Democratic State Governor of Colorado John
Hickenlooper signed into law sweeping cuts to teacher and public employee
pensions that will have a devastating impact on the lives of hundreds of
thousands of workers.
The bill cutting the state’s Public Employees’ Retirement
Association (PERA) was rushed through the Democratic Party-controlled House on
the final legislative night of the year, by a vote of 34-29. It includes the
following measures:
·
The retirement age will be raised by six years, from 58 to 64, for
future teachers, and from 60 to 64 for future public employees.
·
Current teachers will be forced to contribute an extra two percent
of their salaries toward their retirement, from 8 to 10 percent.
·
For the next two years, the two percent annual cost-of-living
adjustment to pensions will be frozen. For a retired worker on a pension of
$25,000, this is a reduction of $500 each year. After the two years, the
cost-of-living adjustment will be set at 1.5 percent—below the rate of inflation—and
can be reduced further.
·
School boards and local government agencies, which have already
been starved of $8.6 billion in funds by the Democratic state government over
the past nine years, will be made to contribute an additional 0.25 percent to
pensions from their existing budgets, which will contribute to further layoffs
and cuts to school programs.
Hickenlooper boasted about the cuts in a press conference on
Thursday night. “Everyone gave,” he said. “You talk about a difficult
compromise. The retired state workers made compromises. The active workers made
compromises...” He declared that while it was important to “strike while the
iron was hot,” further cuts could be in store: “If there is another step, that
can always be done.”
In a press conference the same evening, Republican Senate Majority
Leader Chris Holbert personally praised Democratic House Majority leader KC
Becker and representative Dan Pablon as “great minds” for their work in passing
the bill.
The Democrats and Republicans were able to carry out these attacks
only due to the role of the teachers’ unions, the American Federation of
Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA), which have
systematically demobilized and suppressed teachers’ opposition.
On April 26-27, tens of thousands of teachers shut down schools
across Colorado, including in ten of the largest school districts, to demand
increased wages, school funding and payments toward PERA. Like the educator
strikes that have taken place in Arizona, Oklahoma and West Virginia since the
beginning of the year, the walkouts in Colorado were driven by the rank and
file and developed in opposition to the Colorado Education Association, which
called for only a rally in the state capital and refused to call workers on
strike.
The unions were all the more determined to shut down the walkout
in Colorado because it took place during the six-day statewide walkout by tens
of thousands of teachers in neighboring Arizona. The unions have sought above
all to isolate the strikes on a state-by-state basis and prevent them from
linking up into a national movement.
The role of the Democrats in slashing teachers’ pensions is all
the more revealing, because it exposes the central lie that has been used by
the Democrats and the unions in betraying the teacher walkouts. In Arizona,
Oklahoma and West Virginia, which are controlled by Republican governors, the
unions shut down the strikes without addressing any of teachers’ main demands,
declaring that the only way to fight for public education was to “remember in
November” and elect Democrats in the November 2018 elections.
But when the Democrats are in power, as
in Colorado, they impose no less brutal attacks on workers than Republicans.
Predictably, the national media outlets such as the New York Times and
the Washington Post, which are connected to the Democratic Party
and have sought to present the teachers’ struggles as a “red-state rebellion”
against Republicans, have been completely silent on the pension cuts in
Colorado.
The Colorado Education Association’s (CEA) continuing role in
consciously isolating and demoralizing teachers’ opposition is shown in Pueblo,
Colorado, where 1,000 teachers have been on strike since Monday, closing more
than 30 schools in school District 60, demanding wage increases for teachers
and paraprofessionals.
The CEA has kept the strike isolated to a single school district,
while promoting Democrats as teachers’ allies. On Thursday afternoon, six hours
before state Democrats voted to pass sweeping pension cuts to teachers, the CEA
and Pueblo Education Association (PEA) invited state Democrat for Pueblo Daneya
Esgar to address striking teachers and posture as their ally.
The unions are using the Pueblo teachers to send a message to
other school workers throughout the state: if they seek to strike against the
attacks on their conditions, they will be isolated and betrayed by the union.
The isolation imposed by the union has already emboldened the school district
to reopen three schools on Thursday and Friday.
This morning, the PEA and the school board are holding further
negotiations, where they will seek to reach a sellout deal. The union’s demands
have been limited to a paltry wage increase of two percent, in the form of a
cost-of-living adjustment, and a $30 per month health insurance payment.
Both corporate-controlled parties and the media have defended the
slashing of public workers’ pensions with the claim that it is necessary to
make the PERA fund financially “viable.” These are self-serving lies. Neither
party will touch the immense wealth of the corporate and financial elite,
including the giant oil and gas corporations, whose interests they serve.
A study by Larson Silbaugh, the principal economist of the
Colorado Legislative Council Staff, released on January 12, pointed to the
impact of systematic tax cuts for the energy corporations on Colorado’s state
budget. In 2015 alone, for example, a total of $10 billion of oil and gas was
pumped in Colorado, but, after various tax concessions were applied, the
effective tax rate on the energy giants that year was 0.2 percent.
AMERICAN
WORKERS ASSAULTED ON ALL FRONTS!
U.A.W BELLIES WITH
THEIR CORPORATE BRIBSTERS TO ASSAULT THE AMERICAN WORKER.
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