ILWU pensioners warn younger workers: Don’t let them take your Social Security away

The ILWU mobilization is in response to plans by the White House deficit commission, the secretive bi-partisan committee selected by President Obama, that is reportedly considering drastic cuts to Social Security benefits, including a steep increase in the retirement age.  The move could be passed in the lame duck session of Congress after the November elections.  The move would be an attempt to balance the federal budget deficit on the backs of workers despite the fact that the deficit is the result of large tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, the mounting costs of the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the economic crisis caused in part by under-regulated financial markets.

The ILWU has taken a strong stand is defense of Social Security and will be sending a delegation including pensioners to lobby in defense of the program which has been the most successful anti-poverty programs for 75 years.

“Who better to fight for Social Security than the people who are collecting these benefits and know how vital they are,” ILWU President Robert McEllrath when he announced to the pensioners that a delegation of retirees will be a part of lobbying effort.

Cuts would impact blue collar and minority workers most

Raising the retirement age would disproportionately impact blue-collar worker, a recent report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research concluded. “Despite the fact that the retirement age increase is supposed to encourage workers to work longer, many [blue collar workers] would be physically unable to extend work lives in their jobs, and they would most likely be left with no choice but to receive reduced benefits,” the report stated.

Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at the New School for Social Research, says raising the retirement age on Social Security would discriminate against working class and minority workers, who tend to have lower life expectancies and as a result fewer years of collecting benefits. In addition, blue-collar workers often spend more years paying into Social Security because they start full-time work younger than white collar professionals, she said in a recent interview with the New York Times.

“People who need to retire early — and they need to — are folks that start working in their late teens, whereas people who are promoting raising the retirement age are people who were in graduate school or professional school and got into jobs that would logically take them into their late 60s and 70s,” she said.

Critics of the proposed cuts say that reducing Social Security benefits, which provides the majority of income for two-thirds of the elderly population, and nearly all of the income of one-third of the elderly, does not make sense, especially with record poverty and inequality. They also point out that Congressional Budget Office has stated the program is not in financial trouble. Social Security would still be able to provide full benefits to every recipient through 2039 and provide 75% of the benefits due thereafter, even if no changes are made to the current. Ending the cap of taxing only up to $106,000 of earned income would solve the problem entirely.

Deficit Commission shrouded in secrecy

The President’s Deficit Commission lacks transparency which is raising many questions.  Its work is done in total secrecy and the members of the commission refuse to talk to the public about what they’re doing.  Its recommendations will be released in December, after the mid-term elections which insulates Congress from any potential voter backlash. The noted economist James K. Galbraith stated before the commission in July:

“Your proceedings are clouded by illegitimacy. . . . First, most of your meetings are secret, apart from two open sessions before this one, which were plainly for show. There is no justification for secret meetings on deficit reduction. No secrets of any kind are involved.

“Second, that some members of the commission are proceeding from fixed, predetermined agendas. Third, that the purpose of the secrecy is to defer public discussion of cuts in Social Security and Medicare until after the 2010 elections. You could easily dispel these suspicions by publishing video transcripts of all of your meetings on the Internet, and by holding all future meetings in public.

“Conflicts of interest constitute the fourth major problem. The fact that the Commission has accepted support from Peter G. Peterson, a man who has for decades conducted a relentless campaign to cut Social Security and Medicare, raises the most serious questions.”

Call to action

You can add your voice to the effort to protect Social Security for American workers. Contact your Congressional Representative and Senators and tell them to keep their hands off of your retirement.