Chow chow chow!
Jerry Sanders can splurge on his Thanksgiving meal courtesy of the San Diego Labor Council, thanks to the gift of a can of delicious cat food.
Here, kitty, kitty . . .
The San Diego mayor was given the feline treat and a handwritten note courtesy of Lorena Gonzalez, the Labor Council’s head, according to a Friday press release from the council.
The 27-cent-can of Kroger Farm Fresh Grill cat food was an edible* protest against Sanders’ proposal to shift city workers away from a defined-benefit pension to a defined-contribution retirement plan like a 401k.
*(If you’re a cat)
Gonzalez said that shortchanges city employees, because they don’t get Social Security, because the city decided years ago to stop paying into the fund.
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders
“What is a retiree to do when the market crashes and seniors lose nearly all value of that 401k, without the safety net of Social Security? I guess Mayor Sanders would simply let them live on cat food,” Gonzalez said in the press release.
Gonzalez has a good point about the lack of Social Security. The city should examine how to provide some compensation for that lack.
But as one of the millions of Americans who have a 401k, I find disturbing Gonzalez’ passing reference to “when” the market collapses and nearly all its value is lost. Public employees with defined-benefit pensions don’t get hurt at all when the market crashes. If they received 401k-style retirement plans like most of us in the private sector, public employees would have a bigger stake in a good economy.
The problem lies in excessive pension demands that the city of San Diego shouldn’t have granted. But city employees who asked for these unsustainable benefits also bear the blame, as well as the voters who elected the previous mayors and city councilmembers who approved the unsustainable benefits. At this point, all the options are going to cause financial pain; the only question is how it will be distributed.
As for Sanders, he’s looking to recast his image as a fiscal conservative after his disastrous flop in trying to intimidate voters into raising taxes with Proposition D. It’s rather late in his tenure as mayor, which has been characterized by a lack of transparency, for that transformation to be convincing.
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DISCLAIMER: As with all I write here, this is my opinion, and not necessarily that of my employer, the North County Times.
Comments 9
Lorena Gonzales bought the cat food at Kroger’s for 27 cents? She should have gone to Wal-Mart…she would have saved some money.
Author
Wal-Mart as a non-union company, is verboten to labor officials
“D7 Voter” is a sly one, pretty sure that was
an intentional union/ non-union reference.
Thanks to BOTH of you for a good laugh
at the end of the week !
Yes, I was being a bit facetious with my comments. A little jab at Lorena, along with her friends Todd Gloria, Ben Hueso and Marti Emerald et al., who all seem so afraid of Wal Mart.
I do have a question for those of you more up to speed on the rules of the pension system: Is a switch to a 401(K) style pension program something that is required to be approved by the voters, or can it be done (taking politics out of it) without voter approval?
One additional thought…during the Prop D campaign, there was an aritcle written (Voice of San Diego, I think) about the unusual coalition between the mayor, labor, the chamber, etc. that all came together in support of the tax hike, and whether the coalition would stay together after the campaign. With the cat food gesture I would venture to say the answer is no.
Unless someone knows differently, we believe that the mechanics of the City of SD pension program is purely a city council decision in general, with it then incorporated into each labor contract. So, the decision to go to a 401K program would be the council’s, but each labor contract may need to be negotiated separately to show that as a program, instead of the current city retirement system. So, in effect, it’s not as much a council decision as it is a union decision, unless the council finally steps up and shows some guts and independence.
Going to a “401k” (DC) plan for new hires is a great idea. But I see some big problems.
1. The mayor’s proposal applies only to “general” or “nonsafety” city workers — not police, firefighters and lifeguards (the mayor conveniently failed to mention that in his press release).
2. I’m not sure that the city legally can adopt a straight DC plan without also reinstituting social security. Hopefully we’ll learn more soon on this point The doomed SS system faces a coming likely employer/employee percentage increase in required contributions — I suspect by a lot. That may not go well for the city.
3. The city will be hiring VERY few new general employees in the next ten years or so. Several city services (hopefully) will be outsourced, so the people working in those defunct departments who don’t retire will be repositioned in different city jobs under MEA labor agreement concerning seniority.
Bottom line — the financial relief from the mayor’s DC reform will not be noticeable for a decade or more. We need other solutions that work quicker.
Author
So Sanders’ plan isn’t going to make any difference in the immediate future (as in the rest of his term), when we really need the relief? Meet the new Sanders, same as the old Sanders.
Another question, also somewhat facetious but also a semi-serious question that I have heard other people ask, what would happen if the City simply stopped making its payment to the pension fund?