Retirees push lawmakers to stay vigilant for lame-duck attack on pension rights

December 5, 2016 by
Sen. Al Franken and U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan got an earful from retirees after a forum on threats to retirement security in St. Paul Dec. 5.

Sen. Al Franken and U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan got an earful from retirees after a forum on threats to retirement security in St. Paul Dec. 3.

 

Two years ago, Congress opened the door for troubled pension funds to cut retirees’ benefits, after Rep. John Kline slipped the provision into a must-pass bill keeping the federal government open.

Now, with Congress poised to pass a similar stopgap bill, Kline is back with another “pension reform” bill, and it’s just as bad as the 2014 measure – maybe even worse. But this time around, the element of surprise won’t be on Kline’s side.

A forum Saturday morning on Kline’s proposal drew a standing-room-only crowd of more than 200 retirees to the Macalester College chapel in St. Paul. It was the first in a series of public events to keep pension reform off the lame-duck agenda.

Retirees packed the chapel at Macalester College to learn more about potential legislation weakening defined-benefit pensions.

Retirees packed the chapel at Macalester College to learn more about potential legislation weakening defined-benefit pensions.

“We will be listened to,” retired truck driver Bob McNattin, a leader of Save Our Pensions-MN, told the assembled retirees. “They cannot treat us this way.”

[McNattin’s group will take its message directly to Kline this Saturday with a 10 a.m. demonstration outside the congressman’s Burnsville office, at 350 W. Burnsville Pkwy.]

While the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 dealt a blow to the rights of retirees in critically underfunded multiemployer plans, Kline’s latest proposal, known in Washington as the “composite bill,” has a much broader reach.

It would allow healthy pension plans to split in two, with a “legacy plan” following the defined-benefit model and a “composite plan” that, pension attorney Ann Curry Thompson told forum-goers, more closely resembles a 401(k). The composite plan would base retirees’ benefits on the performance of its investments and, critically, receive no backing from the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation.

Allowing employers and pension administrators to divert money from defined-benefit plans and into composite plans would almost certainly increase the number of federally insured funds facing critical shortfalls – and make more retirees vulnerable to benefit cuts made legal by Kline’s 2014 reform bill, Curry Thompson warned.

Bill Moore, president of the Minnesota State Retiree Council, AFL-CIO, said the prevailing attitude in Congress regarding pension reform – that the only solution is to cut benefits earned by working people – is dangerously skewed in employers’ favor.

“A pension is not a legacy,” Moore said. “It is not a gift from our employers… It’s deferred compensation.” Despite retirees’ advancing age, Moore added, “one thing we don’t forget is the hours and days and number of years that we put in to earn our pensions.”

U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan checked a fact with pension attorney Ann Curry Thompson while addressing retirees Dec. 3.

U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan checked a fact with pension attorney Ann Curry Thompson while addressing retirees Dec. 3.

At least three members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation haven’t forgotten either. U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan and Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken – all DFLers – spoke at the forum Saturday in opposition to Kline’s composite bill.

“Promises made should be kept,” Klobuchar said.

Lawmakers also pledged to remain vigilant for any attempt to sneak the composite bill through the lame-duck Congress.

A day before the forum, Franken sent a letter to leaders of both parties in the House and Senate urging that any pension legislation “be carefully considered and debated openly and honestly, not enacted at the last minute with little debate, few hearings and no opportunity to offer amendments.”

Franken also offered a potential tool for the Pensions Benefit Guarantee Corporation to help struggling pensions, like the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund, meet their obligations: closing a tax loophole on carried interest – a provision of the tax code exploited only by “the top one-tenth of the 1 percent,” Franken said.

Regardless of how it happens, Curry Thompson said, Congress can’t afford to let pension funds leave retirees high and dry. The economic fallout of pension failure makes retirees “too big to fail.”

“As politically unpopular as it is, what is really needed is a … public solution,” Curry Thompson said, noting that pensioners spend money, pay taxes and contribute to economic growth. “I’ll call it what it is. You need a bailout.”

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School employees target Kline in fight to restore special education cuts

August 15, 2013 by
SEIU Local 284 President Keith Niemi talks to management and security staff in the West St. Paul SuperTarget.

SEIU Local 284 President Keith Niemi talks to management and security staff in the West St. Paul SuperTarget.

John Kline has enough influence in Congress to make reversing federal cuts to education a priority. But who has influence enough to get the 2nd District Congressman’s attention?

Target Corporation does, according to members of Service Employees International Union Local 284.

In an unannounced visit to Target’s West St. Paul location yesterday, activists attempted to deliver a letter asking Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel to use his company’s considerable clout with Kline to push for restoration of $9.2 million in education funds Minnesota schools lost as a result of federal sequestration cuts this year.

Kline chairs the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, charged with oversight of federal funding for special education.

“We all know that Target has a very powerful voice and presence in education in Minnesota,” Local 284 President Keith Niemi told store managers at the West St. Paul SuperTarget. “We also know that Target is the biggest contributor to Rep. Kline’s campaign, and that Rep. Kline will listen to Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel.”

Target has given $12,500 to Kline’s campaign and his “Freedom and Security PAC” so far during the 2014 election cycle, according to opensecrets.org. Only New York Life Insurance has donated more.

The funds Minnesota schools lost to sequestration were intended to support education for children with disabilities. The $9.2 million cut means about 110 school employees will lose their jobs, according to a White House estimate.

That doesn’t sit well with Melissa Demers, the mother of a child with special needs enrolled in the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights-Eagan Schools. Demers praised Target for its charitable giving to Minnesota school districts, but she added, “Without people working, the paper and the crayons are not going to do anything for these students.”

Niemi, whose union represents more than 8,000 school employees, added: “Our special education students cannot be expected to succeed with fewer paraprofessionals, fewer teachers and fewer resources that result from cuts in funding for the education of Minnesota’s children.”

Store management and security personnel would not accept the letter to Steinhafel, and union members left the store peaceably.

Outside, Kline’s constituents said they doubted their congressman would get the message.

“With Target being a supporter and advocate of Rep. Kline – and of education – I’m disappointed they would not even deliver a letter for us,” Inver Grove Heights resident Mary deLeon Denton said.

A member of the St. Paul Federation of Teachers, Denton has “seen the impact of budget shortfalls on special-education programming and staff” during her 34-year career as an educator.

So, too, has Valorie Rolstad, a Local 284 member who works as a special-education paraprofessional in the Columbia Heights district. When she first took the job, Rolstad was one of 60-plus paraprofessionals in the district. “Now we are just maintaining at 30,” she said.

Local 284 is asking supporters to contact Kline and tell him to stop education cuts due to sequestration. Call Kline at 952-808-1213, or e-mail him at kline.house.gov.

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CWA volunteers take fair-trade message into John Kline’s district

June 27, 2013 by
CWA members set to doorknock in West St. Paul are, L to R, Amber Kush, Lisa Markegard, Nick Feist, Christina Hollie and Mona Meyer.

CWA members set to doorknock in West St. Paul are, L to R, Amber Kush, Lisa Markegard, Nick Feist, Christina Hollie and Mona Meyer.

Twin Cities members of the Communications Workers of America have some major concerns about the latest proposed free-trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. On June 20 they took those concerns to union members in West St. Paul and asked supporters to sign onto a letter to 2nd Congressional District Rep. John Kline.

The letter asked Kline to identify what’s in the TPP. That may sound like a simple request, but the fact is most members of Congress don’t know.

The TPP, which encompasses 11 countries and would be the largest free trade agreement the US has ever signed, is being negotiated in secret, with hardly any oversight from Congress. In fact, only about 600 “trade advisors,” mostly representatives of multinational corporations, are privy to the talks.

CWA members Tom Laabs, Dale Foster and Earl Moore prepare to knock doors in John Kline’s district.

CWA members Tom Laabs, Dale Foster and Earl Moore prepare to knock doors in John Kline’s district.

But as previous free trade agreements have shown, corporations aren’t the only ones with a stake in how trade negotiations play out. Since NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, took effect in 1994, the number of trade-displaced jobs certified by the Labor Department in Minnesota stands at 39,797 – the 15th highest in the nation as a percentage of state population.

Fortunately, some members of Congress are working to lift the cloud of secrecy surrounding TPP negotiations.

Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District will join a public forum on the trade pact Monday, July 1, in Minneapolis. According to organizers, Ellison will “explain what the TPP is, what it will do, and how we can fight back!” Click here to view the event details on Facebook.

Along with Ellison, the forum will feature Josh Wise of the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition, Jim Harkness of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and Richard Ryan of the International Association of Machinists.

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Working America members target John Kline for blocking middle-class tax cuts

September 20, 2012 by

Working America member and 2nd District resident Mike Adair shows off the check mocking John Kline’s support for millionaire tax cuts.

BURNSVILLE – If millionaires don’t get a tax cut, then no one gets a tax cut.

That’s 2nd District Congressman John Kline’s stance, and it was the target of workers protesting outside Kline’s Burnsville offices Sept. 12 during a national day of action for tax fairness sponsored by Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate.

“John Kline voted against extending the Bush-era tax cuts for the 98 percent of Americans in the middle and working classes because those tax breaks for the richest 2 percent would have ended. He would not agree to that,” said Chase Brandau, a Minnesota organizer for Working America.

To drive the message home, Working America member Mike Adair, one of Kline’s constituents, delivered a three-foot-long check from Kline payable to “Millionaires.” The amount payable – $160,000 – represents the average annual tax cut people making over $1 million will receive if Kline’s efforts to extend the Bush tax cuts are successful, according to the National Economic Council.

“We’re here to deliver this check to Rep. Kline as a symbol of what he’s given (to millionaires) at the expense of working people in his district,” Brandau said.

Working America members from the 2nd District said tax fairness and a balanced budget are among their top concerns in this election year.

Ending the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2 percent would raise nearly $1 trillion in revenues over 10 years, helping to balance the federal budget. Extending the tax cuts for 25 million working Americans, meanwhile, would ensure consumers have the spending money necessary to keep the fragile economic recovery on track.

“Money at the top stays at the top,” said Adair, a small business owner and graduate student who lives in Eagan. “You can’t create jobs when money stagnates at the top.”

Elizabeth Huffman of Cottage Grove said she usually tunes out politics, but got involved in the Working America protest because she is fed up with politicians who attack the middle class.

“I’m tired of seeing the top 2 percent making all the rules. I would have loved to have heard John Kline’s justification for all of this,” Huffman said. “Enough is enough. Seeing what’s happening in this country, it’s ridiculous.”

Working America members said Kline’s refusal to take a balanced approach to budget and tax policy not only protects millionaires at the expense of working families, but it also puts funding for Medicare and education – programs that protect the middle class – at risk.

“Money is being wasted in contributing it to millionaires and being denied to people in the middle and lower income groups, where it would actually do the most good,” said Paul Hoffinger of Eagan. “It’s part of the reason we’re experiencing a recession.”

Workers staged similar protests in more than 30 cities across the U.S.

Working America has organized more than 3 million members, workers without the benefit of a union on the job, to fight for a just economy. For more information on the organization, go to www.workingamerica.org.

Working America members protest outside John Kline’s Burnsville offices.

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Outside John Kline’s office, minimum-wage workers rally for a raise

July 24, 2012 by

Workers ask John Kline to consider living on $290 per week, the gross pay of a full-time, minimum-wage worker in Minnesota.

Could John Kline live on $290 per week?

That’s the question several constituents from the 2nd Congressional District asked their Republican representative in the weeks leading up to today’s three-year anniversary of the last federal minimum-wage increase.

When Kline failed to provide his constituents with an answer, they decided to deliver a letter to his Burnsville office – and bring along about 50 of their friends and supporters. Together, they rallied in support of efforts to give the country’s lowest-paid workers a raise – efforts Rep. Kline says he continues to oppose.

“The economy is getting worse, and people need help,” said Dezirai Jones, a Savage resident who works for minimum wage at a local restaurant. “(Kline) doesn’t know what it’s like to make minimum wage. Even if he tried he would find it hard and a real eye-opener.”

Jones and other minimum-wage workers at the event, staged by the union-backed organization Minnesotans for a Fair Economy, talked about their struggle to make ends meet for themselves and their families.

“Minimum wage is basically impossible to live off of,” said Mallory Curran of Lakeville, a single mother who is separated from her husband but unable to afford a divorce.

A Minnesotan working 40 hours a week at minimum wage grosses about $290. Kline, by contrast, averages a salary of about $3,300 per week.

James L. Peng of Inver Grove Heights asked Kline to consider agreeing to live on $290 a week.

“Perhaps it’s difficult to imagine what $290 a week might look like,” Peng wrote in a letter to Kline. “We’d like to encourage you to consider trying to live on that amount for one week. After all, it isn’t easy to understand one’s personal experience if you haven’t encountered that experience yourself.”

Kline, who chairs the House Education and Workforce Committee, voted against the last minimum-wage increase, passed in 2007.

Without an increase over the last three years, the minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation – let alone skyrocketing executive pay.

Workers in the 2nd Congressional District weren’t the only ones pushing a minimum-wage hike today. A team of prominent economists, including a Nobel laureate and a former Secretary of Labor, released a letter to President Obama and congressional leaders today.

The letter, sent from the Economic Policy Institute, argues “a higher minimum wage at this juncture will not only provide raises for low-wage workers but would provide some help on the jobs front as well.”

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