Showing posts with label David Groves. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Groves. Show all posts
Friday, September 2, 2011
Fading Retirement Prospects Explain Why We’re So Glum
By DAVID GROVES
A new statewide Elway Poll finds that more of us are worried about the future than ever, or at least since he began asking that question 20 years ago.
"What troubles me right now is I'm pushing 50 years old, and the market is pretty dead," Ron Ross told the Seattle Times. "I'm nervous for my future and my retirement because I don't think Social Security is going to be around. And I'm just watching my 401(k) do nothing except get smaller."
That neatly sums up the anxieties being faced by all Americans.
This summer, dramatic market fluctuations have become the norm as stocks plummet on the latest crisis in Europe or worries about whether Congress will pay America’s bills. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 500 points in a day three different times in August. So far, the market has mostly rebounded from these rapid declines, but we all remember the Great Recession’s October 2008 crash when the Dow lost nearly 20% of its value in one week.
These wild market gyrations cause more than just heartburn, they wreak havoc on Americans’ hopes and dreams for the future.
With the decline of defined-benefit pension plans and the shift to 401(k)-style savings plans invested in company stock or mutual funds, many Americans have become part of the “investor class” George W. Bush envisioned. In the process, we have lost our retirement security.
Down markets postpone or ruin retirement plans. They wreak havoc for existing retirees whose fixed incomes depend on modest earnings from their lifetime of savings. And they harm job prospects for our youngest workers, as stock fluctuations create waves in the labor market as older workers are suddenly unable to leave the workforce and create vacancies for the next generation.
A recent special report in the San Jose Mercury News concluded: “Many older workers are responding to the economic downturn by postponing retirement, but even so, it will be a struggle to make up for market losses in their retirement plans. Some were counting on their houses as a post-work financial cushion, but now their homes are worth less. They can't depend on dividends and interest on savings -- that income has nearly vanished. They also face layoffs and difficulties getting rehired.”
Glum yet?
As if all this wasn’t bad enough, certain politicians in Washington, D.C., insist on actively undermining public faith and confidence in Social Security and Medicare, the pillars of American retirement security, and are proposing to cut their benefits rather than take the modest steps necessary to preserve and enhance both programs.
It’s no wonder this generation has never been so gloomy. If we can find work, we face the prospect of working until we die.
Our gloom is the result of decades of economic policies that put profits before people, and will take decades to correct. But let’s start by fighting to protect, preserve and strengthen our Social Security and Medicare safety nets.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
ILWU Fights For Jobs & Respect in Longview
By David Groves
A major labor dispute at the Port of Longview, which has included more than 100 arrests and citations and hundreds of union dockworkers blocking a mile-long train to prevent grain shipments, has escalated even more after the terminal operator, EGT Development, began escorting workers from another union to work at the facility.
In the company’s attempt to become the first grain export terminal in Washington to use non-union labor, EGT has sued the Port in federal court to avoid hiring members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21, which has a contract for all longshore work on Port property. ILWU 21 responded with major protests at the company’s headquarters and the Port terminal to get EGT to drop the suit and return to the bargaining table. Those protests escalated as the company made good on its threat to use non-union labor during the testing phase of the new $200 million facility.
Then, in a surprise announcement last week, EGT said it has signed an agreement with Federal Way-based General Construction Co., a subsidiary of Kiewit, to operate the terminal with union members from the Portland-based International Union of Operating Engineers Local 701. Mark Holliday, IUOE 701 Business Manager, sent out a statement saying, “Local 701′s members are trained to operate and maintain the EGT facility.”
On Sunday, ILWU hosted a barbecue for about 200 supporters from around Western Washington to discuss the latest developments in their efforts to retain their jobs and jurisdiction at the Port of Longview. ILWU 21 President Dan Coffman and Washington State Labor Council President Jeff Johnson both told the crowd that organized labor must come together to fight EGT.
“EGT, a Japanese multinational corporation that has received tax breaks from our state to build this grain elevator, has thumbed its nose at the members of ILWU Local 21 and is trying to pit workers against workers, local unions against local unions. This is unacceptable,” Johnson said “The work at the Port of Longview is longshore work and we need to come together as community and labor and say ‘no’ to EGT — ‘you will not disrespect labor in Longview or anywhere else in our state’.”
“Union longshore workers have made the Northwest one of the most productive grain exporting regions in the world,” Coffman said. “This new grain terminal stands to gain by playing by the same rules as the other grain operators that are making lots of money with productive union workers.”
EGT Development, a joint venture of Japan-based Itochu Corp, South Korea’s STX Pan Ocean and St. Louis-based Bunge North America, got a special tax exemption from the State of Washington to build the Longview terminal entitling them to a “remittance equal to one hundred percent of the amount of tax paid for qualifying construction, materials, service, and labor.” But the company built and is trying to operate its new facility on the cheap. Despite high unemployment in Cowlitz County and the availability of hundreds of skilled union building trades workers, the Northwest Labor Press reports that EGT imported the vast majority of its construction crews from low-wage communities out-of-state and did not pay area standard wages.
Bunge CEO Alberto Weisser was paid nearly $10 million in 2010. Bunge and his company have been accused of profiting from slave labor in Brazil.
David Groves is a member of PSARA & Publications Director with the Washington State Labor Council. You can find his work daily at “The Stand” on the WSLC website.
A major labor dispute at the Port of Longview, which has included more than 100 arrests and citations and hundreds of union dockworkers blocking a mile-long train to prevent grain shipments, has escalated even more after the terminal operator, EGT Development, began escorting workers from another union to work at the facility.
In the company’s attempt to become the first grain export terminal in Washington to use non-union labor, EGT has sued the Port in federal court to avoid hiring members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 21, which has a contract for all longshore work on Port property. ILWU 21 responded with major protests at the company’s headquarters and the Port terminal to get EGT to drop the suit and return to the bargaining table. Those protests escalated as the company made good on its threat to use non-union labor during the testing phase of the new $200 million facility.
Then, in a surprise announcement last week, EGT said it has signed an agreement with Federal Way-based General Construction Co., a subsidiary of Kiewit, to operate the terminal with union members from the Portland-based International Union of Operating Engineers Local 701. Mark Holliday, IUOE 701 Business Manager, sent out a statement saying, “Local 701′s members are trained to operate and maintain the EGT facility.”
On Sunday, ILWU hosted a barbecue for about 200 supporters from around Western Washington to discuss the latest developments in their efforts to retain their jobs and jurisdiction at the Port of Longview. ILWU 21 President Dan Coffman and Washington State Labor Council President Jeff Johnson both told the crowd that organized labor must come together to fight EGT.
“EGT, a Japanese multinational corporation that has received tax breaks from our state to build this grain elevator, has thumbed its nose at the members of ILWU Local 21 and is trying to pit workers against workers, local unions against local unions. This is unacceptable,” Johnson said “The work at the Port of Longview is longshore work and we need to come together as community and labor and say ‘no’ to EGT — ‘you will not disrespect labor in Longview or anywhere else in our state’.”
“Union longshore workers have made the Northwest one of the most productive grain exporting regions in the world,” Coffman said. “This new grain terminal stands to gain by playing by the same rules as the other grain operators that are making lots of money with productive union workers.”
EGT Development, a joint venture of Japan-based Itochu Corp, South Korea’s STX Pan Ocean and St. Louis-based Bunge North America, got a special tax exemption from the State of Washington to build the Longview terminal entitling them to a “remittance equal to one hundred percent of the amount of tax paid for qualifying construction, materials, service, and labor.” But the company built and is trying to operate its new facility on the cheap. Despite high unemployment in Cowlitz County and the availability of hundreds of skilled union building trades workers, the Northwest Labor Press reports that EGT imported the vast majority of its construction crews from low-wage communities out-of-state and did not pay area standard wages.
Bunge CEO Alberto Weisser was paid nearly $10 million in 2010. Bunge and his company have been accused of profiting from slave labor in Brazil.
David Groves is a member of PSARA & Publications Director with the Washington State Labor Council. You can find his work daily at “The Stand” on the WSLC website.
Friday, July 30, 2010
In plain English! Your Voters’ Guide to ballot measures
By David Groves
(Editor’s note: The July 22 Membership Meeting of the Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans adopted the same positions on this year’s ballot issues as those recommended by David Groves.)
The initiative process is direct democracy. It’s our opportunity to do what legislators don’t do -- or for us to undo what they did.
But, for a people’s process, the ballot questions sure don’t use plain English. By the time the dueling attorneys are done beating all the common sense out the question, it’s hard to tell exactly what we’re voting on.
Translating all the pompous legalese, here’s your Plain English Voter’s Guide to this fall’s key statewide ballot measures:
INITIATIVE 1053: Should we get rid of majority rule in the State Legislature? Should we let one-third of legislators block passage of the budget or anything related to state revenue?
When you put it like that, you see Tim Eyman’s I-1053 for what it is: an intentional recipe for gridlock in Olympia. In California, a similar super-majority requirement has been an unmitigated disaster -- unless you like your state employees receiving IOUs instead of paychecks.
I-1053 is a harmful, undemocratic impediment to our elected legislators’ ability to fund the critical state services we all rely upon, especially during the current severe economic downturn. Vote NO!
INITIATIVE 1082: Should AIG and other insurance companies take over our public nonprofit workers’ compensation system? Should we let them work the same “private sector efficiency” magic that they have on our health care system?
The fact that the insurance companies and the Building Industry Association of Washington are spending millions to try to convince you this is a good idea may be all you need to know. For them, this is just a cynical opportunity to make money – in BIAW’s case, by allowing them to skim money from the system to fund their right-wing conservative politics.
The truth is that I-1082 would drive up employers’ costs by at least 25% and that would kill jobs in this state. In states with privatized systems, taxpayers have been forced to bail out insolvent insurers that left injured workers and employers hanging. Vote NO!
INITIATIVE 1098: Should people who can afford it, pay less or more taxes than poor people?
I-1098 tackles the elephant in Washington’s living room: As a percentage of their incomes, the rich here pay less in taxes, and the poor pay more, than in any other state. It’s called a regressive tax structure, but us plain English speakers call it ass-backwards.
I-1098 will make the tax code fairer by creating a high-earners income tax on couples with joint incomes of more than $400,000 a year ($200,000 for individuals) to raise desperately needed revenue dedicated to education and health care. Vote YES
INITIATIVES 1100 AND 1105: Do we want liquor sold in every WalMart and Rite Aid?
These rival initiatives funded by dueling retail special-interests would privatize Washington liquor stores, eliminating more than 1,000 family-wage jobs and costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars per year in revenue. That means even more cuts in core state services.
Our state liquor stores have the best compliance rate in the nation for avoiding alcohol sales to minors. That’s because clerks have decent family-wage jobs that they don’t want to lose. Hand that grave responsibility to a minimum-wage clerk at a big box store, and the State Auditor estimates teenagers’ access to hard alcohol will increase by more than 400%. That’s why public safety officials have denounced I-1100 and I-1105. Vote NO on both!
INITIATIVE 1107: Should we force the Legislature to do another all-cuts budget?
Should we revoke taxes on soda pop, bottled water, candy and gum, compelling the Legislature to make even more severe cuts in education, public safety and health care?
Callously indifferent to the billions of dollars in state job and service cuts enacted in the past two years, out-of-state industry groups funded I-1107 to protect their products from taxation. Do you think the folks at Nestle care whether there are 30 or 35 students per class in Washington’s schools, or whether we have to eliminate parole supervision for criminals? No way – their focus is on the bottom line. Vote NO
REFERENDUM 52: Should we create jobs by repairing and upgrading schools?
The “Schools & Jobs Referendum” would issue $505 million in bonds to create some 30,000 jobs doing energy repair and retrofitting work at public schools, state colleges and universities. This investment will create desperately needed jobs and energy cost savings for the state over the long term. It will pay for itself and frontload the jobs NOW, when we need them. Vote YES!
(Editor’s note: The July 22 Membership Meeting of the Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans adopted the same positions on this year’s ballot issues as those recommended by David Groves.)
The initiative process is direct democracy. It’s our opportunity to do what legislators don’t do -- or for us to undo what they did.
But, for a people’s process, the ballot questions sure don’t use plain English. By the time the dueling attorneys are done beating all the common sense out the question, it’s hard to tell exactly what we’re voting on.
Translating all the pompous legalese, here’s your Plain English Voter’s Guide to this fall’s key statewide ballot measures:
INITIATIVE 1053: Should we get rid of majority rule in the State Legislature? Should we let one-third of legislators block passage of the budget or anything related to state revenue?
When you put it like that, you see Tim Eyman’s I-1053 for what it is: an intentional recipe for gridlock in Olympia. In California, a similar super-majority requirement has been an unmitigated disaster -- unless you like your state employees receiving IOUs instead of paychecks.
I-1053 is a harmful, undemocratic impediment to our elected legislators’ ability to fund the critical state services we all rely upon, especially during the current severe economic downturn. Vote NO!
INITIATIVE 1082: Should AIG and other insurance companies take over our public nonprofit workers’ compensation system? Should we let them work the same “private sector efficiency” magic that they have on our health care system?
The fact that the insurance companies and the Building Industry Association of Washington are spending millions to try to convince you this is a good idea may be all you need to know. For them, this is just a cynical opportunity to make money – in BIAW’s case, by allowing them to skim money from the system to fund their right-wing conservative politics.
The truth is that I-1082 would drive up employers’ costs by at least 25% and that would kill jobs in this state. In states with privatized systems, taxpayers have been forced to bail out insolvent insurers that left injured workers and employers hanging. Vote NO!
INITIATIVE 1098: Should people who can afford it, pay less or more taxes than poor people?
I-1098 tackles the elephant in Washington’s living room: As a percentage of their incomes, the rich here pay less in taxes, and the poor pay more, than in any other state. It’s called a regressive tax structure, but us plain English speakers call it ass-backwards.
I-1098 will make the tax code fairer by creating a high-earners income tax on couples with joint incomes of more than $400,000 a year ($200,000 for individuals) to raise desperately needed revenue dedicated to education and health care. Vote YES
INITIATIVES 1100 AND 1105: Do we want liquor sold in every WalMart and Rite Aid?
These rival initiatives funded by dueling retail special-interests would privatize Washington liquor stores, eliminating more than 1,000 family-wage jobs and costing the state hundreds of millions of dollars per year in revenue. That means even more cuts in core state services.
Our state liquor stores have the best compliance rate in the nation for avoiding alcohol sales to minors. That’s because clerks have decent family-wage jobs that they don’t want to lose. Hand that grave responsibility to a minimum-wage clerk at a big box store, and the State Auditor estimates teenagers’ access to hard alcohol will increase by more than 400%. That’s why public safety officials have denounced I-1100 and I-1105. Vote NO on both!
INITIATIVE 1107: Should we force the Legislature to do another all-cuts budget?
Should we revoke taxes on soda pop, bottled water, candy and gum, compelling the Legislature to make even more severe cuts in education, public safety and health care?
Callously indifferent to the billions of dollars in state job and service cuts enacted in the past two years, out-of-state industry groups funded I-1107 to protect their products from taxation. Do you think the folks at Nestle care whether there are 30 or 35 students per class in Washington’s schools, or whether we have to eliminate parole supervision for criminals? No way – their focus is on the bottom line. Vote NO
REFERENDUM 52: Should we create jobs by repairing and upgrading schools?
The “Schools & Jobs Referendum” would issue $505 million in bonds to create some 30,000 jobs doing energy repair and retrofitting work at public schools, state colleges and universities. This investment will create desperately needed jobs and energy cost savings for the state over the long term. It will pay for itself and frontload the jobs NOW, when we need them. Vote YES!
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