NNU Executive Director

RoseAnn DeMoro

In the waning moments of the last Congress--and yet another battle over how much to slash federal programs that help people under the threat of another government shutdown--2014 omnibus budget bill that could have a devastating impact on countless retirees.

Called the multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, the law, which passed without debate or public hearings, permits significant reductions in multiemployer pension plans, which are generally defined benefit plans negotiated in collective bargaining agreements between unions and two or more employers.

The bill is just the latest window into an insidious broader agenda: the assault on all retirement programs, from Social Security to employer-sponsored pension plans, that threaten to mire millions of people in poverty in their post-work years.

Language in the misnamed “Reform” Act came from recommendations by the National Coordinating Committee for multiemployer Plans, a third of whose working group comprises executives linked to the insurance industry and Wall Street. Their goal is to end all employer contributions to all workers’ pensions.

Current financial struggles faced by multiemployer pension plans, like 401(k) plans and other retirement programs, may be directly linked to those who want to cut them, especially the Wall Street bankers and other wolves who created the economic crash of 2008, prompted in large part by casino style gambling with workers’ pensions.

The result is an escalating crisis for all working people, including RNs, who have counted on pensions to supplement meager Social Security payments, earning pension benefits often at the expense of pay increases or other economic improvements to be able to look forward to being able to retire in dignity.

RNs in the private sector, even those who work for wealthy private employers, have seen repeated demands to slice their pension benefits.

Nowhere is the attack on worker pensions greater than in the public sector. Calls to slash public pensions have become standard rhetoric for governors, state legislators, mayors, and other elected officials of both major parties.

The Wall Street raid on worker-earned pensions cannot be separated from the steady offensive against Social Security, which celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, and is one of the most important reforms in U.S. history, along with its partner Medicare, whose 50th anniversary also arrives this summer.

Both reforms share a common impetus, helping to stave off crushing poverty for Americans in their retirement years. But Medicare would not exist without the path blazed by Social Security, an act that brought hope, and lifesaving support, for millions of older Americans at the height of the Great Depression in 1935.

Upon the law’s passage, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman to hold a Cabinet post in U.S. history and the public official who shepherded the law to life, noted it was reflective of“progress the American people have made in the social field and awareness of methods of using cooperation through government to overcome social hazards against which the individual alone is inadequate.”

Social Security is especially critical for women who tend to live longer than men, are paid less during their working life, spent more years out of the workforce than men raising families, typically have less savings than men, and are less likely to have worked in jobs that provided pensions.

Wall Street speculators, anxious to privatize Social Security, big employers, and the anti-government crowd have never ceased efforts to erode and ultimately destroy Social Security. The result is continual efforts to reduce Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age, and cut the program.

Their attack is premised on fabricating a crisis in the Social Security trust fund as a pretext to push their dreams of budget cuts and privatization, even though the trust funds at their current level are fully secure until 2033, and able to be maintained at three fourths of scheduled benefits for years after.

The campaign is given voice by a PR effort to discredit the labor of tens of millions of Americans, whose toil created the trust fund, by labelling Social Security as an “entitlement” not worthy of protection.

NNU has long made winning and defending pensions for RNs a top priority, and we have joined with other labor, seniors, and consumer advocates to stand up to the attacks on Social Security. That fight continues today.

Steps to protect Social Security are well known, particularly raising the cap on payroll taxes so that the wealthiest Americans pay more into the system.

A new welcome development is a growing push by progressive politicians, first initiated by Sen. Bernie Sanders and now joined by others, such as Sen. Sherrod Brown, to actually expand Social Security with long-needed cost-of-living increases and other updates, rather than just resisting the constant attacks. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, which does great work on the issue, has delivered to Congress petitions from millions of Americans who oppose any cuts and want a benefit boost.

Another solution is to pass the Robin Hood Tax on the avaricious Wall Street speculators who are so anxious to gobble up our pensions. H.R. 1464 would set a small tax on transactions of stocks, bonds, and derivatives, raising hundreds of billions of dollars every year for critical needs, from jobs to healthcare to eradicating student debt, and retirement security.

In the final years of her life, Frances Perkins was able to look back on her signature accomplishment. “One thing I know,” she said in 1962, “Social Security is so firmly embedded in the American psychology today that no politician, no political party, no political group could possibly destroy this Act and still maintain our democratic system. It is safe forever, and for the everlasting benefit of the people of the United States.”

It’s up to all of us to make that so.