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Pension attack fails, new threats launched
After a dangerous and deceptive pension initiative failed to gain support, right-wing extremists Chuck Reed and Carl DeMaio have come out with two new proposals that continue their efforts to degrade the hard-earned pension benefits of public employees.
While their new approach appears to dial back the threat to current workers, the new attacks are just as dangerous. Everyone who cares about the economic security of California as a large segment of our population moves toward retirement should take this multi-pronged attack very seriously.
Fighting the growing retirement security crisis
Local 1000 is spearheading a coalition of labor, faith and social justice groups to expand programs that address the growing retirement crisis facing millions of Californians.
Last month, our union cohosted a coalition-building event that released research reviewing this growing crisis and what Californians will face at retirement age without new policies to change the future.
Retirement Security for All
California is on the verge of a retirement crisis: With what is already one of the highest poverty rates among seniors in the nation, more than six million Californians have no access to a workplace retirement plan and are in danger of retiring to significantly diminished lifestyles. Nearly half of California’s working population is headed toward retirement into poverty.
Social Security Is Not Enough
Social Security alone won’t be enough to stop the slide into poverty. Experts say that program will provide only about 40 percent of what the average retiree needs. For a secure retirement, financial planners talk about a “three-legged stool” consisting of Social Security, personal savings and a workplace retirement plan, like a pension or a 401(k). But for too many Californians with no savings and no defined benefit plan, two legs are missing and the stool is set to crash under the pressure.
A Great Contract Begins with a Living Wage
Action Day RSVP
On April 14th, Local 1000 members statewide are gathering to mark the Fight For $15’s momentous first step and continue the fight for economic justice.
We will be out in full force, marching for our contract and all working families, because a great contract begins with a living wage!
Immigration Reform
It has been estimated that there are almost 12 million undocumented residents living in the U.S. They reside uncomfortably in the shadows of our communities, unable to share in the responsibilities or privileges of citizenship, and they live in fear of unexpected and often arbitrary enforcement of immigration laws…laws that a majority of Americans want changed.
California Secure Choice
And Local 1000 is taking a lead role in creating new and innovative private-sector models for workers who don’t have pensions. In 2012, Local 1000 was a strong supporter of the legislation that created the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Plan which, if implemented, would provide a voluntary, automatic-enrollment, retirement plan for millions of Californians without one. Local 1000 President Yvonne R. Walker serves on the Secure Choice Board, and the union is committed to moving this important program forward.
CalSavers
Retirement Security for ALL Launched
CalSavers, the new retirement savings plan that will allow millions more Californians to retire with dignity, launched its pilot program and will begin enrollment in 2019. In 2016, Local 1000 sponsored SB 1234, the most ambitious push to expand retirement security since Social Security in the 1930s. Currently, less than half of private sector workers have access to a pension plan.
Stockton Bankruptcy Ruling Is a Win for Public Employee Pensions
On Thursday, Oct. 30, 2014, federal Bankruptcy Court Chief Judge Christopher Klein ruled in the City of Stockton case. One of the issues was whether public employees should be treated like any other creditor in bankruptcy. The good news is that Stockton city employee pensions are safe and the threat this case posed to public employee pensions everywhere has been averted.
Local 1000 member lays out intergenerational challenges of retirement security in testimony before Secure Choice Retirement Board
Following are the comments of Local 1000 member Susan Difuntorum, an associate information systems analyst at DDS. She testified on May 26 at the Secure Choice Retirement Board, who is working to provide retirement options for the millions of Californians who don’t have employer-provided pensions.