Biden the Bailout King is at it again

When the complaint is about moving after retirement something is wrong.

 

the threat of losing valuable employees will make companies pay more, or go out of business due to lack of quality employees. unions jsut run up the price for everything through inefficiency

and railroad workers do get plenty of PTO. They want additional sick time so they don't have to use their PTO. The PTO hours are the equivalent of what they had when they had more sick time but now they want more and couch it as if they do not get paid when they have to stay home sick. They get paid, it jsut comes out of their PTO bucket and not a separate set aside for sick time. Stats have shown that it is amazing how much healthier people are, call off of work due to sickness much less, when they have to use their PTO time instead of sick time

If the unions would have offered to reduce the PTO time by hours, I am sure the railroads would have traded it for sick time but the unions wanted to keep the PTO time the same and add another day off to an already generous PTO allowance

The Difference Between Vacation and Paid Time Off (paycor.com)

Research consistently shows that incorporating a PTO policy will result in employees taking more vacation time and fewer sick days. This benefits employers in two ways. First, employers typically receive more notice about scheduled vacations and can plan for adequate coverage. Second, employees return to work more refreshed and productive following vacation leave, which generally doesn’t happen if they’re using sick days.

 

I don’t have an issue with pensions unless the employees get it without contributions.

I paid a lot into mine determined by what our actuaries calculated yearly to keep it solvent.

 

the complaint is that the retirees benefitted from the largess of the taxpayers but when they could, they relocated so that they didn't have to be one of the suckers paying for their own benefits they have enjoyed and continue to enjoy

 

the problem is that actuaries overestimated the rate of return to be able to reduce yours, and the company's contribution, and paid a small pittance to have the taxpayer insure it. The insurance rate was so low because the politicians wanted the union support so the costs were kept low. See above, re: estimated rates of return finally falling below 7% when the long term averages have never been that high

 

was the insurance properly priced? If so, why does the taxpayer need to bail out the insurance fund?

If not, why not? To secure union support would seem to be the most likely answer.

what were the expected rates of return for the pensions versus that historical market averages? Did overestimating the ROR well beyond historical averages decrease the contributions required from the employees?

 

They paid for their benefits through years of labor. There was never a requirement that, after they retired, they had to pay some of it back to the state they worked in.

 

Then put it in the benefits that they can’t move out of state without a penalty. Playing by the rules is ok.

Some people as they age are told by their doctors to relocate to a warmer climate for many differing reasons. (One example)

 

First, the last 50 years has shown that market mechanisms standing alone do not check employer excess. It's a fundamental tenet of antitrust law that there has to be some form of equal bargaining power. That's the function unions play.

Second, you are completely omitting the fact that recent advances have made rail operations run with far fewer people. That is a positive in and of itself but leaves absolutely no possibility if an employee calls in sick for things to actually function, and is cruel in the demands on humans in the way it actually functions.

Currently, rail employees can take days off for any reason, but those days are generally unpaid and workers might be docked under the railroad’s attendance rules. And it’s hard to get paid leave or vacation days approved unless workers plan far ahead and have the seniority to secure them, so that makes those kind of leave days nearly impossible to use for a sick day. That’s why some workers question the value of the one additional paid leave day these contracts offer even though it would be the first improvement to that leave time since 1981.

“When I go to take them (personal leave days), every time without fail: ‘Oh, the crew supply doesn’t meet demand. We’re denying it.’ You’ve got to try to plan them in advance — ahead. So you can’t use those for your sick days,” said Paul Lindsey, a longtime Union Pacific engineer based in Pocatello, Idaho, who is active with the Railroad Workers United group that’s campaigning against the proposed contracts.

The strict attendance policies that some railroads use that dock certain employees points for missing work for almost any reason have been a key concern for the unions this year because workers can be disciplined after losing all their points. The railroads maintain those systems are needed to ensure they have enough crews available, and they say the systems give workers flexibility to take some days off as long as they manage their points.

“Over the years, they’ve laid off workers in droves while expecting those who remain to do much more,” said Chen, a sociologist who studies labor issues. “They’ve imposed schedules that are wildly unpredictable because it means they can squeeze more out of each worker. They’ve put in place insane attendance policies that would never fly in white-collar workplaces.”


Why many railroad workers still won't approve a new contract: 'Eventually there won’t be anybody to fix those choo-choos'

Kevin Drum refers to the PTO controversy but doesn't seem to know how it really works. But he does cover the fact that the agreement is not that generous either on the financial terms.


Who’s got the best argument in the railroad talks? - Kevin Drum


In the end, it's just a matter of you whether you will treat them with human dignity

Rerum Novarum (May 15, 1891) | LEO XIII


The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of its Traditional Defense by Reinhold Niebuhr

 

who is going to cough up the cash for these underfunded public pension promises?

what good programs are going to be eliminated to pay for the generous pension plans promised by politicians in exchange for union support at the polls?

sorry pregnant woman, no prenatal program for you, sorry school kid, get used to 45 kids per class and underpaid teachers...these pensions are going to suck the cash out of the system, cash that is needed to do the things the gubmnt is supposed to be doing, like fixing drinking water systems, educating children, repairing roads and bridges.

And note this is just the state pensions and does not include all of the local pension that are not part of the state systems

Tackling $8.28 Trillion in Unfunded State Pension Liabilities - American Legislative Exchange Council - American Legislative Exchange Council (alec.org)

In the sixth edition of Unaccountable and Unaffordable, the authors observed that unfunded state pension liabilities in the United States today stand at a whopping $8.28 trillion, a number that represents a third of our national product. This situation poses an existential threat to state budgets and their ability to finance essential services, and to keep the pension promises made to state employees.

While this dramatic increase from last year’s report is in part due to the reduction in the risk-free discount rate because of the fall in U.S. Treasury bond yields, it still highlights the increasingly risky investments pension funds are taking on across the country.

State pension funds use historical trends to forecast the future values of their assets and liabilities. Over the past 20 years, the annual return assumption these fund managers use has hovered between 7% and 8%. However, actual returns on their investments have manifested between a rollercoaster range of -9.5% and +15.3% – which is dangerously volatile. As a consequence, returns have, on average, been about 1% lower than expected, leading to actuarial gaps and risks of insolvency, threatening the economic well-being of our retirees and the states’ financial health.
............................
Often enforced by contract law, constitutional mandates, or other rules, states are obligated to pay out pensions (see fig. 7 in ALEC’s latest report) – regardless of economic conditions or fund’s monetary value. In such cases, states are forced to either raise taxes, slash other programs, or take on debt to finance these pension plans. In the end, the losing parties are the taxpayers – while pension fund managers remain largely unaccountable for their failure to produce promised investment returns.

 

I was admittedly unaware that they could not use their PTO days for sick time at will.

If the job is so bad, why do the employees stay? If enough peopel quit, the company would have to modify their system so that they could continue to operate.

 

didn't say I agreed with it, just pointing out the reason why some were upset about it

 

I don't substantively disagree with your points. We have a tremendous liability in underfunded public pensions. The only reason it doesn't exist as much in the private sphere is because of greater legal protection although it also exists there. I linked to "Retirement Heist” earlier, in which a Wall Street Journal reporter details the many ways that executives legally pilfer pension funds and then say that they are underfunded. It's been part of the short-term thinking that is distributed back to Jack Welch or Al Dunlap. Though I haven't read the book on Welch, I think that really became a failure of philosophy. They were responding to the messages they receive from funded research which wrote down normal human societal communitarian restraint and rationalized as virtuous antisocial behavior.


As noted, I come to this from a philosophical/religious perspective.


But the problem with underfunded public pensions is more fundamental. It's a failure of the philosophical movement which has been percolating and controlling since at least the mid-70s. We devalue and delegitimize the public sector in a way that is not justified by reality. And we cut taxes far below what is necessary to maintain a civilized society. In our federalism model means that states can compete against one another. Those are all large philosophical failures in society. However justifiable at the outset, and I've read a fair amount to suggest that they were, we have been in excess for about 30 years now, far beyond the correction. In the end it will require a philosophical reevaluation of our attitudes towards taxation public service. But in the interim, these are the solutions that are necessary to ensure the benefit of the bargain and also to stabilize economically.

 

I disagree with this statement. If we devalued their service the unions would not have such sway over elections. Public unions exchange endorsements in return for total costs of employees (includes benefits and retirement) that are far above what the private sector can or will support via price. Try and get elected as a police chief, city council, county commissioner, school board member, etc without the support (or with the opposition from) of the police, fire, teacher unions

 

Absolutely. Said so many times. I should distinguish. There is a reason that Scott Walker omitted police and fire unions in his attack on public-sector unions. And you are correct about local politics. You have to have the endorsement of local public safety unions. They are bargaining for economic consideration but will attack you and say that you don't support the police. That plays on deep pathos within our society.

But I think that as a society, most people do not associate police and fire employees as the public sector. I should have been clearer

 

PolitiFact - Biden’s $36 billion to save Teamsters fund from insolvency is largest-ever private pension bailout

 

It's a bizarre American mindset that says it's not fair that worker A gets more in retirement income than worker B but whatever economic rape and plunder billionaires manage is fair play.

 

Thinking about this thread title. Biden has done his fair share of bailouts. At the time Trump's Covid bailout was the largest in history, not sure if that's still the case. Bush signed the TARP bailout. I think Trump signed the airline bailout? Clearly this isn't a partisan thing.