Congress gives a nice Christmas present to the Unions

Good day all, this one slipped under the radar, not unexpectedly since the Democrat Propaganda Department, (Formally the Main Stream Media), isn’t going to cover it. As most people know, Unions have a habit of looting their pension plans and most are not fully funded.

Actually, most of them aren’t even close to being fully funded and are staring down the barrel of bankruptcy. One such union, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, has demanded asked Congress for permission to screw over cut the pensions of it’s members, including those already retired. Here are the details from the Washington Times:

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union is a heavyweight on the labor scene. It pays its president $350,000 a year. It’s holding its next executive board meeting in February at a swanky beachfront resort in Hollywood, Florida. And it just doled out nearly $8 million to influence the last election and lobby Washington.

This is typical of Unions in this country. They take care of themselves, specifically their leadership, and their minions in the Progressive Liberal Fascist Democrat party, usually at the expense of their members.

But when it comes to standing by the obligation unions made to provide pensions to retirees, UFCW pleaded poverty in persuading Congress to let chronically underfunded union pension plans cut the benefits of workers, including those already retired.

Oh, that’s going to make a lot of rank and file union members happy.

“Declining participation and factors like the Great Recession have created a new reality for Taft-Hartley multiemployer plans wherein many of them are substantially underfunded,” departing UFCW President Joseph T. Hansen wrote to the House Education and the Workforce Committee in a letter this month.

And what is their plan to correct the problem? Is it to do things like cut the pay and expenses of the thugs running the union? Look into better investments? Find a way to cut all extraneous expenditures that really don’t do anything for the rank and file? You are kidding, right?

“The simple fact is that in order to save some of the most vulnerable pension plans trustees must be given the ability to slightly reduce benefits. This is the only realistic way to avoid insolvency and preserve as much of the promised pension benefits as possible,” the union boss wrote in a letter urging lawmakers to allow underfunded union pension plans to cut promised benefits.

The UFCW isn’t the only union looking for a way to both loot and screw over their membership.

Numerous other unions, many of them big spenders on the political front, also lobbied for the concession.

In other words, they were paying bribes to their pet members of congress so the upper ranks of the union leadership can continue on as always, as a cash transfer system from their membership into the union leaderships coffers. You would think that Congress would tell them to get their house in order, but they also don’t give a damn about the serfs and peons union rank and file.

Congress obliged in a last-minute deal approved by lawmakers as they fled town for Christmas break. On Dec. 15, President Obama signed the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 into law, empowering any multiemployer pension fund — commonly managed by unions — to cut benefits for workers and current retirees if the plan is 20 percent or more underfunded. In another words, Congress and the president let workers who spent decades toiling away to vest in retirement programs take the hit for union managers who failed to keep pensions fully funded.

Considering that a majority of the pension plans are probably more than 20 percent underfunded, I think a large number of union members are going to get a nice surprise in the next few months. I’m not surprised that this blew through the senate, especially since the PLFD’s had their heads handed to them last November. I am surprised that the House let this go through though.

The concession to union lobbying was a major reversal for Congress, which in the past steadfastly protected the pensions of workers who already had retired.

“The real point of contention is in the cutting of benefits in payment status, meaning benefits currently being paid to retirees. That’s a dramatic departure from long-standing legislation and practice that essentially says that benefits currently being paid cannot be reduced,” said Jean-Pierre Aubry, assistant director of state and local research at Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research.

Mr. Aubry said the new law will enable multiemployer plans to make deeper cuts to pensions than the 2006 Pension Protection Act allowed. “The new legislation allows for more dramatic cuts to the accrued benefits for current workers and, notably, allows for cuts to the benefits currently being paid to retirees,” he said.

Go to the Washington Times and read the full article. Many people who are in unions really don’t want to be. They have no choice but to join or not have a job. When given the option to leave a union they have been forced to join, essentially at gunpoint, they bolt so fast that it causes an atmospheric disturbance as air replaces the space vacated by the former members.

Unions had a use in this country perhaps 100 or more years ago. Today, they are not only not of much help to the working person, they are actually destructive to the workers, the companies that are unionized with forced membership and also to the country in general. If you want to see what a union town looks like, just pay a visit to Detroit and see what 60+ years of union domination has done. London after the Blitz looked better.

Unions are slowly going the way of the dinosaur, and they know it. They are fighting it tooth and nail, using their bought and paid for congressmen and senators to keep them afloat. However, at the state level, the governors and state legislatures are far more responsive to the voters. This is why we have seen more and more “Right to Work” laws being passed, always over the screams and in many cases, outright thuggery and violence of the unions that will be affected.

Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin went through that fight and showed America just what Unions will do to get their way. He won and they lost big time, and now many of the union locals that were affected by the new legislation are closing their doors. Why did they close their doors? Because the membership decided to put their interests ahead of the unions and said “Sayonara Suckers!”

In New Hampshire, the local telephone company is dealing with a strike by some of their unions. While I am not fully up to speed on this strike, (I have seen some of their picket lines, which I ignored), I understand that a final offer was made to them by the phone company. The unions turned it down, and now they are, or have been, replaced.

That’s one thing unions don’t deal with to well. Bad economic times means lots of unemployed, skilled workers. They want a job, they can be retrained and they will actually be better paid then the union members who are now out of a job. Why? They aren’t being forced to give a part of their paychecks to a bunch of greedy crooks running the unions. Soon enough, unions will go under. It won’t be pretty, and it will cause a lot of damage, all because the Union leadership refuses to change with the times. It can’t happen soon enough for me.

Thatisall

~The Angry Webmaster~

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