Your God-given, GOP right to dumpsters

Peggy Noonan gloats in a post-Wisconsin triumphalist aside that

Down the road there will be fewer contracts in which you work for, say, 23 years for a city, then retire with full salary and free health care for the rest of your life--paid for by taxpayers who cannot afford such plans for themselves, and who sometimes have no pension at all.

True. Down the road such workplace monstrosities will be obtainable only by corporate executives, such as GE's Jack Welch, who, having struggled through his last year of full employment on a mere $16.7 million, managed, in his retirement package, to secure the use of a GE-owned jet aircraft and Manhattan apartment, as well as basketball tickets, satellite television for his four abodes, really expensive aged grape juice and a subscription to the New York Times. I repeat. This multimillionaire finagled a newspaper subscription, which is now factored into the cost of GE refrigerators.

But down the road you say you don't wish to subsidize GE's and Mr. Welch's lavishness, so, in this land of free-enterprise and individual-contract splendor, off to other refrigerator manufacturers you go? Sorry. And tough. Because their retired CEOs are receiving similarly outrageous indulgences.

Meanwhile you realize that you've no business shopping for a new refrigerator anyway, because your former corporate employer gutted your pension plan after ruthlessly hacking your salary down to Hoovervaudevillian levels; and besides, you've got that $100,000 hospital bill to try to pay off before the Great Healer sues you for everything you have, including the about-to-be-foreclosed-on roof over your head.

But it's a damn good thing you gave those greedy unions what for, way back in 2012. That showed 'em. And ever since you've been free ... free to fucking starve.

Comments

[Peter G]

A fairly concise summation of a, nay the, dystopian future. At least as far as unionized manufacturing goes. And yet a pragmatist would ask, what can you realistically do about it? I'm watching the same show you are watching. So, when I pointed out elsewhere that the ill-advised Wisconsin recall election was likely to founder on some fundamental facts, my analysis was taken as concurrence with right wing policies. And that wasn't true at all. The last bastion of unionism seems to be public service unions and that is simply because those jobs cannot be out sourced or relocated to other jurisdictions. Pretty much all union manufacturing jobs can and are as the economics of a given industry dictate. The blogosphere is inundated right now with posts from people asserting that many in Wisconsin voted against their own interest. I'm sorry but that just isn't true. Self interest is entirely a matter of personal perception and many on the low end of the economic spectrum cannot be accused of voting against own self interest when it comes to voting for bargaining rights for a select minority to secure wages and benefits they can never dream themselves of obtaining. That excrescence, Noonan is right in that regard. What then must we do?

[Peter G]

Pardon the run on paragraph above. For some reason I can not get these comments to break up as I would wish.

[Robert Lipscomb]

In the absence of union contracts, it will be increasingly important to protect workers rights and benefits through legislation and regulations. Universal healthcare and an improved Social Security system come to mind.

The Democratic Party should find a way to emcrace this role in a more assertive manner.

[AnneJ]

Robert- I was thinking the exact same thing myself.

[Beulahmo]

"...work for, say, 23 years for a city, then retire with full salary and free health care for the rest of your life--paid for by taxpayers who cannot afford such plans for themselves..."

So I guess Ms. Noonan thinks taxpayers should feel resentful--not at their employers because they themselves have lousy or non-existent retirement and health benefit plans--but at city employees who DO have decent retirement and health benefit plans. Got it.

Hmmm. Does Ms. Noonan collect federal retirement benefits for the time she spent working for the Reagan and H.W. Bush administrations? If so, I wonder how generous those benefits are?