PEP, March 2012: Letters to the Editor

Public Employee Press

Letters to the Editor

Thank you DC 37 from Local 32BJ cleaners
Editor's note: This letter was sent to Executive Director Lillian Roberts:

Thank you for your support of our members during 32BJ's commercial contract campaign. This was one of the toughest contract fights I have experienced in more than 35 years as a union member and leader. Emboldened by a national attack on unions and working people, the employers and owners here were determined to make major cuts to pay and benefits, and to silence our voice in politics. They pushed us to the brink.

Local 32BJ cleaners were ready to strike. We came out in record numbers, overflowing hotels and taking over the streets to demand a fair contract and a voice for working people.

But even then, without your help we would not have won. I am proud of the way New York City's labor leaders came together with community and religious organizations fighting for workers and immigrants, and with elected officials in support of working people to show them we are united and strong. The attack on the middle class is ferocious and unrelenting, but together we sent a clear message: We will not be pushed back.

On behalf of the 32BJ officers, Executive Board and 22,000 commercial cleaners who won a fair contract, thank you again for your help and support.

— Michael P. Fishman
President, Local 32BJ SEIU

Praises union training
Editor's note: This letter went to DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts:

I hope and trust you are well and in the best of health. I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks a million for the excellent Local 1549 program and training session on Saturday, Jan. 28.

It was indeed a pleasure and honor to have AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee Saunders as our keynote speaker. His speech made me appreciate my union and what AFSCME has done for the community and our members.

Ms. Roberts, I would like to make a suggestion which may help all union members, active or inactive. At our lunch meetings please play AFSCME's 75th anniversary video ("I Am a Man"). The older generation can relate, current members will be informed and new members educated on the union's history.

Your staff did an excellent job. Hope has been generated again within our union.

— L. Brian Griffin
Local 1549

Tier 6: dangerous, inadequate, destabilizing

Governor Cuomo with Mayor Bloomberg's support is looking to revamp the pension system. They seek to make the guaranteed defined pension exceedingly expensive with smaller payouts, or replace it with a 401(k) plan.

Important information they intentionally omit for public consumption: the average NYS and NYC retiree's yearly pension is a meager $19,000 a year, and according to Mario Cilento, president of the state AFL-CIO, 76 percent of these pensions are less than $30,000 a year.

These pension reforms will not produce substantial savings for 30 or more years, when the statistical glut of baby boomers will no longer be on the books, so dangerous radical reform is not necessary.

Data from multiple sources indicates that 401(k)s are inadequate and recent history illustrates that anyone who plans on retiring when the market is in a down cycle will have eroded substantial savings that most likely will never be recouped.

It is a deceptive, mean-spirited argument to pit the private sector vs. the public pension system. The average private-sector worker was much better off with a guaranteed pension. Corporate profits have grown as the retirement burden has shifted onto the backs of workers.

Now the governor and mayor aim to replace middle-class pension stability with a stock market gamble that has a proven track record of failure. If we want to provide stable middle-class retirement, then we must guarantee a secure pension, Social Security and personal savings as the traditional three-legged stool.

We do not hear the governor and mayor state that pensions must be fully funded each year and that these funds cannot be used for other means. New Jersey recently passed legislation requiring the state to fund their pension system after a decade of not doing so. We do not hear a moderate plan. As is all too common in the political climate in America today, there is no middle-ground compromise. It's a winner-take-all attitude and labor is falsely portrayed as overpaid. Woe is America if the middle class further disappears, causing a further divide of rich vs. poor with political instability the inevitable outcome.

— Mark Shoenfield
Local 2627

Wants to contribute more

Today I am writing this letter to thank Executive Director Lillian Roberts and Stu Leibowitz, president of the Retirees Association for all their work on our behalf. I am a retiree for about 10 years and I donate monthly to the PEOPLE PAC. I would like to give more money to the union PAC.

— Martin Weber