NYC's pension plan now gobbles up one dollar out of every $10 in the city budget.

This is happening in states, cities, and towns across the US. California has it the worst but NY and NJ are not far behind. Lots of promises were made over the years that were not funded and the sharp equity correction last year ravaged the assets of many of these pension plans. Unions will fight to the death to prevent moving their workers from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans. They want to maintain gold-plated benefits (like the UAW did so well for so long) while pushing through salary increases to get the public sector up to private sector just in salary terms.

i cannot imagine anything short of obama having the political clout to even bring this to the table much less do anything about it. it is clear that our society can no longer afford this largesse yet i, for one, cannot see any approach that could be remotely fair.

http://www.amazon.com/While-America-Aged-Bankrupted-Financial/dp/B001JQLN7I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246023483&sr=8-1

For further reading on this subject. Pretty damning: the UAW leaders have known they were looking at the high probability of bankruptcy/liquidation for years.

unions are nothing more than a different version of communism. no incentive to work hard nor is there any real accountability. sounds like utopia! look at the utopian society in detroit!

streakeasy...could not agree more.
unions reward workers for doing nothing. all you have to do is look at the airline industry. the only profitable airlines are the ones that use non-union workers (southwest, jetblue, etc.).

I disagree, but only halfheartedly. They certainly have become a pedantic lot. I'm really curious to see how owning the means of production works out for the UAW. I'd bet they're going to start changing their rhetoric and/or benefits toot suite.

streakeasy you are a moron. the reason pension expenses are through the roof is because of the rising costs of health insurance. if the country had single payer health insurance choice pensions would be no where near the trouble they are now, and the USA's car indusry would be in a much better shape.

It is conservative morons fault for fighting against national healthcare. Oh yeah you brilliant people alos faught against improving mileage standards for american cars.

OMG I agree with petrfitz! the public option is the only way that makes sense. it's amazing to me that businesses shoulder the health-insurance for their employees and pensioners and then try to compete with companies in EVERY other country that has businesses. I don't understand why they don't stand up and refuse.
(Note I said they pay health INSURANCE, not healthcare, because 80% of it doesn't go to health care or health care providers.)

petrfitz, you are a moron.

wtf petrfitz, come out swinging and attack the person, not the idea? conservative or liberal, unions don't work. petrfitz, have you ever been to china where so called 'communism' is at work? let me rephrase, have you ever been to a communist country outside of manhattan's rent controlled districts? do you have friends who live in communist countries? do they tell you how disheartening it is to see such low morale with equal treatment and entitlements?

with obama's new health care plan, supposedly 'gold-plated' collective-bargaining agreements will be exempt from taxation of health care. how is that fair?

"It is liberals morons fault for fighting against tort reform of malpractice suits"

I know I would agree with petrfitz at some point

national healthcare is not the answer. it will simply bankrupt the nation. why don't we just give out vouchers to those who need healthcare. food stamps, healthcare, all necessary needs. i agree if you can't afford healthcare, you should get it. however, pensions given out to collectively bargained unions while breaking laws of bankruptcy is probably not the right way to handle things. too much effort has been given to proven failures of organized labor.

nationalized health care is good. unions stink.

unions breed inefficiency. hard work is not rewarded and sub par workers keep their jobs because business owners cannot fire them despite their ineptitude.

hopefully this plan for nationalized health care doesn't become the next social security, medicaid/medicare, list of government entities continues...

is there any government organization that actually runs under budget?

"unions are nothing more than a different version of communism. no incentive to work hard nor is there any real accountability."

On the contrary, it's unions who actually BRING accountability to management. Just because employees have organized into a powerful bloc that won't be steamrolled by management doesn't mean they don't work hard at their jobs.

"unions breed inefficiency. hard work is not rewarded and sub par workers keep their jobs because business owners cannot fire them despite their ineptitude."

Again, blanket statements like this are just as wrong as saying all black people are on welfare.

Unions force accountability on the part of management. Hard work for union members (at least in the unions I've belonged to) IS rewarded in the form of OVERSCALE contracts.

And it's no harder to fire a union employee than it is to fire an at-will employee. What is required, however, is a paper trail by management. I've belonged to four unions over the course of my career, and not a single one of them would go to bat for a truly incompetent member who deserved to be fired.

Interestingly, unions were one of the big early advocates for nationalized health care. Had we gone that route, we would arguably have lower health care costs now, and the unions would not be completely embattled.

Yes, at their worst, unions do all of that. But white collar professionals are not generally unionized, and what happens? Workloads go up, wages stagnate or fall, and the competitive stakes keep ratcheting up. Collective bargaining carries with it distinct benefits for employees.

NYC Matt - You are right that it doesn't mean that they don't work hard. It just means that they don't have to, because they can't be fired if they don't. Breeding inefficiency.

"NYC Matt - You are right that it doesn't mean that they don't work hard. It just means that they don't have to, because they can't be fired if they don't. Breeding inefficiency."

Completely untrue, at least in my industry.

You can't make blanket statements like that for ALL union members. I've seen plenty of co-workers -- UNION co-workers -- fired or let go because they just couldn't do the job.

"But white collar professionals are not generally unionized, and what happens? Workloads go up, wages stagnate or fall, and the competitive stakes keep ratcheting up. Collective bargaining carries with it distinct benefits for employees."

Perhaps more white-collar workers should consider joining unions. It's working beautifully in other industries like mine.

streakeasy - i have spent a lot of time in China and Russia. I have business interests in both. I also own a company in New Zealand where they have "socialized" healthcare. They love it. They dont worry about going brankrupt from medical bills. They dont have pension problems etc. They live pretty stress free lives.

the biggest issue is America is healthcare and the status quo wont work. Small and large businesses are being destroyed by the assnine private healthcare industry lobbied for and created by the conservative morons who also lobbied for the Iraq War and against high fuel standards for american cars.

This pension fiasco speaks more to the failure of civic values in our society than anything else. No-one trusts anyone to look out for anyone else. In the long run, untenable pension costs will mean the end of such pensions one way or another, but unions will refuse to be reasonable because the attitude (on all sides) is to keep every single penny that is "due" to oneself without thought of the long term consequences.

***"No-one trusts anyone to look out for anyone else."***

Um ... hello? Been asleep since September? We've had a little boo-boo on Wall Street involving the people who were SUPPOSED to be "looking out" for our economic well-being (not to mention our 401(k)s ...

***"In the long run, untenable pension costs will mean the end of such pensions one way or another, but unions will refuse to be reasonable because the attitude (on all sides) is to keep every single penny that is "due" to oneself without thought of the long term consequences."***

So your idea of "reasonable" is to agree to allow the parties involved to back out of their previously agreed-upon contracts?

Gee, why don't we all do that? Let's all back out of contract agreements! Frankly, I personally feel my mortgage has become "untenable" ...

"Gee, why don't we all do that? Let's all back out of contract agreements!"

- The Government had no problem changing the law/contracts and doing it to Chrysler Bondholders

Up next, California Bondholders...time to take your haircut!

matt-what four unions?

Right, and in the end, this is why our society will always end up with the most painful, stupid, long-winded end-game solution that is no solution.

In times of crisis, it's possible that "rule of law", democratic, heterogenous societies like the U.S. will be less nimble than dictatorships. Unions protect the interests of the current employees and retirees but when we're faced with a crisis like this, they are way too entrenched in their position to look beyond their mandate. Is it better to preserve the financial interests of a few or have a functioning, efficient government?

And yes, I think that banks have done a rotten job renegotiating mortgages when in the long run, their investment might be better protected by voluntarily lowering interest rates for certain mortgages.

CC, I've belonged to:

WGA
IBEW
AFTRA
NWU

wasn't this thread about pensions? are post retirement medical benefits part of pensions? they weren't for me.

"Pensions" don't apply to retiree medical benefits. If your union or employers offers them, they're a separate benefit.

"unions reward workers for doing nothing. all you have to do is look at the airline industry. the only profitable airlines are the ones that use non-union workers (southwest, jetblue, etc.)."

Please think the next time you bash unions:

DALLAS -- Southwest Airlines Co. reported a surprisingly large loss in the first quarter as traffic fell in what the CEO called the carrier's toughest revenue environment ever.

The company said Thursday it will offer buyouts to employees to trim its work force and was also imposing a hiring freeze.

Southwest said it lost $91 million, or 12 cents per share, including $71 million due to the falling value of its fuel hedges.

http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2009/04/southwest_airlines_posts_first.html

JetBlue Posts Loss but Revenue Rises

JetBlue Airways(JBLU Quote) reported a pretax $49 million loss in the fourth quarter due to fuel-hedging losses and a charge but saw its revenue increase.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10460753/jetblue-posts-loss-but-revenue-rises.html

Unions are needed - a counterweight to greedy business owners. Or why do you think, child work has been elimanated in our part of the world?
Universal Health Care is needed - the cost of treatment for high-risk patient can be shouldered much easier in an insurance pool of 50 mio participants than let's say 1 mio.

Free Markets don't work without strong oversight - so let's make sure we will have strong oversight for the UHC

"Universal Health Care is needed - the cost of treatment for high-risk patient can be shouldered much easier in an insurance pool of 50 mio participants than let's say 1 mio."

without rationing and making it more efficient though it's just an accounting gimmick. what needs to change is USA's ability to spend double of what Canada and France spend and yet have to deal with worse outcomes and lower life expectancy. could the obesity epidemic, for example, be addressed much better within a universal system?

This fear of the commies is sooo 1960's. France has controlled health care for all, unions (syndicats), & 5 weeks paid vacation/year yet it's one of the top 5 world's power.
The problem is that the rich babyboomers in the US (mostly republicans) got too greedy and brought the US to its downfall!

"On the contrary, it's unions who actually BRING accountability to management"

Now THAT is funny.

When I think of the power of the unions in NYC - with the teachers, with the government workers... what I think of is "accountability".

Hillarious.

> Unions are needed - a counterweight to greedy business owners

So then why would unions be necessary for public employees?

(don't answer that, we know the real answer)