Dean Baker writes about the latest front in the class wars: Pension Theft: Class War Goes to the Next Stage

The specifics of the situations are very different, but the outcome is the same. Public employees who spent decades working for the government are not going to get the pensions that were part of their pay package. In both cases we have governments claiming poverty, and therefore the workers are just out of luck.

(snip)

The other item generally missing from the coverage is that these pensions are part of workers’ pay. Controlling for education and experience, public-sector pay is somewhat lower than the pay of private-sector workers. The more generous pension and health care benefits that most public-sector workers enjoy are offsetting lower wages.
The pensions are not gifts bestowed by the government on workers; they are part of workers’ pay. When the city of Detroit or state of Illinois cut workers’ pensions, they are in effect saying that they are not going to pay workers for the work they did.

(snip)

The disturbing aspect about the Illinois situation is that the underfunding of the pension was a deliberate choice. For years the governor and Legislature approved budgets that did not make the required contribution to the pensions. (The city of Chicago, under Mayor Richard M. Daley, did the same thing.) This was a deliberate shafting of workers in which most of the state’s leading political figures acquiesced.

I’m among those who will get shafted by the state of Illinois thanks to the lege not paying into the fund for the past 30 years, unless the state supreme court overrules this latest pension theft “reform.”

And apparently, there are moves to do similar “reform” to California public pensions. And Illinois and California are governed by Democratic executives and legislatures!

It’s maddening and disheartening to be constantly under attack for expecting to be paid what you are owed.