“On Wisconsin, on Wisconsin! Plunge right through that line …” so starts the University of Wisconsin Green Bay Badgers fight song. Those “lines” stretched to some 30,000 raucous, righteous supporters of labor rights – all marching on the statehouse in Madison during the freezing February winter.
To say it’s been an interesting couple of weeks around the planet is certainly an understatement. To say the demonstrations across the Arab world and Middle East are in no way connected to labor rallies in our own Midwest and to politics in San Diego is to miss the big picture.
On “CBS Sunday Morning” (aired 2/20/11) journalist Martha Teichner covered the story of Prichard, Alabama residents Alfred and Jackie Arnold. Mr. Arnold was Prichard’s first black firefighter. He served his town for 35 years. Mrs. Arnold was the town’s first female police officer spending 40 years on the job. As public servants, they paid into a pension plan and like many municipal, school district, state and federal workers they are not eligible for social security. They relied on their investment in guaranteed pensions for retirement.
Prichard, Alabama has not made pension payments to its 144 municipal retirees since September of 2009. Its retired police officers, firefighters and other municipal workers are declaring bankruptcy, forgoing prescription medicine and food. The situation is literally killing some. The City of Prichard essentially seized and squandered pension funds over the course of many years. They moved money around. They knowingly underfunded their own employees’ pensions. City officials are unrepentant. Sound familiar? At the end of her piece, Teichner calls out San Diego as one of a handful of big cities eyeing Prichard as a model of how to avoid its pension obligations.
Fast forward to Sacramento. The year is 2026. By some cruel joke of fate, Tea Party darling Carl DeMaio occupies the Governor’s Mansion. (Yes, he reopens it and spends $25 million in public funds tarting it up with silk moiré wallpaper, Louis Catorce gilded divans and elaborate defensive armaments.) Facing a massive state budget shortfall and with public pensions seen only as quaint relics of a bygone golden age, Governor DeMaio announces that, pursuant to his emergency powers, he is seizing all 401K retirement assets. This will allow him to balance the state budget and finally payoff those nagging management fees levied by the country’s last bank GoldmanFargoChase of America, which coincidentally contributed $750 million to DeMaio’s successful gubernatorial bid.
Far-fetched? Maybe, but when you think about it, government seizure of your retirement account is just a baby step beyond blowing off public pension obligations. When the middle class is stripped of its assets, they have no assets to spend. What’s so shortsighted in the systematic destruction of unions, collective bargaining and pensions is that these are the folks we rely upon to buy what we sell. Houses, groceries, consumer electronics, restaurant meals, travel and yes, even healthcare. To simply put it, who’s gonna consume if we drive all the consumers into poverty?
Even worse, as the system becomes increasingly rigged in favor of tone-deaf leaders, corrupt corporations, consumer confidence – the magic potion of capitalism – evaporates. As we know now, low interest rates, massive incentive programs and tax breaks for the superrich have done little to make workers spend above subsistence levels. Who can blame them for being cautious with major purchases?
When municipal governments across the country including San Diego’s hint at gutting pensions, they do far more economic harm than good. It’s time American cities inject vision and common sense into their human capital. I mean, how can you put firefighters and police officers on pedestals during their years of service and then eviscerate their pension benefits once they retire? Were we just stroking these workers while they were on the job, or are we uncaring employers who, after a lifetime of service, turn our backs on them? What does that say about us?
Perhaps a good place to start fixing the problem would be to reject the flawed Reagan-era notion that “Government IS the problem.” That poorly thought-out zinger has created two generations of Americans who hold their leaders and government workers in utter contempt. You can’t viscerally hate your government and love your country. Who are you kidding?
Cairo, Madison, Prichard and San Diego are four governments with real financial problems. Three of the four have blamed labor organizations for their woes; painting union employees as greedy villains. Amidst epic grassroots protests, one of the four just kicked its disingenuous, self-serving autocrat to the curb. The other three are said to be exploring their options.
Jim Abbott is the President/Managing Broker of ARG Abbott Realty Group DRE LIC 1843472. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Nat’l. Assn of Gay and Lesbian Real Estate Professionals. He is a former board member at EQCA, SDAR, CAR and a past Library Commissioner for the City of San Diego. He can be reached at info@argsd.com or at his downtown office where his adult children pretend to let him run the company.
