Workers

Oklahoma House Republicans are touting what they perceive to be “historic” pension reform, but let’s remember reducing the unfunded liability of the state pension programs was the result of reducing future benefits of current and future retirees.

According to a press release issued Thursday, the unfunded liability of the state pension programs has supposedly been reduced from $16 billion to $10.6 billion. (The release doesn’t tell us exactly how this was calculated.) State Rep. Randy McDaniel, an Oklahoma City Republican and chair of the House Pension Oversight Committee, had this to say about the reduction:

The reforms are making a meaningful difference. At a time when nations in Europe as well as other states in our country struggle to even address their structural debt problems, Oklahoma’s financial condition is already exhibiting remarkable improvement.

It’s debatable whether the so-called reforms “are making a meaningful difference” in Oklahoma’s overall “financial condition.” Some of the money taken from retirees will now not end up in the overall economy. Hypothetically, this could even contribute to more budget cuts in most state agencies, including schools and colleges.

Essentially, the state is cutting benefits of its employees. If there is a comparison to Europe, it’s with that area’s ongoing non-productive and immoral austerity movement in which the rich, worldwide corporate power structure, including the banking industry, hope to make workers pay for its own corporate greed and mistakes. Obviously, Oklahoma isn’t Europe, but the same austerity principles apply when it comes to the conservative political majority in the state. Investment bankers literally destroyed the world economy and now they, along with their conservative political supporters, want the 99 percent to pay the price here and elsewhere.

Buried in the press release in the last paragraph is this:

The reforms enacted this year included House Bill 2132, which requires a funding source before cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) can be granted, and several acts that increased the retirement age for future employees.

One can only speculate why this significant information was given in the last paragraph. It should have been in the first paragraph, which might have read something like this: Recent cuts to current and future Oklahoma retiree benefits have made the state’s pension programs more solvent. That’s what has happened, not some brilliant, legislative reform. Also, the pension funds’ assets have apparently increased because of better investment conditions. But does anyone doubt the investments will someday sink again because of the lack of regulation in our entire banking and investment system?

The real problem state workers and teachers face is that these so-called reforms and the pat-myself-on-the-back adulation are just the beginning. Watch for more legislative interest in state pensions next session as well. If you’re reading this and you’re a state worker or teacher, who fall under one of the state’s pension plans, then consider yourself warned: The Oklahoma Republicans are coming after your retirement in order to fund more state income tax cuts for rich people. They will disguise this effort with sloganeering and buzzwords and false comparison, but it doesn’t get clearer than this if, and this is a big if in Oklahoma, you’re paying attention.

On a positive note, voters in Ohio recently voted to discard a Republican law that limited collective bargaining rights there for state workers. Let’s hope voters here will also eventually recognize the GOP’s continued embrace of economic injustice as a party platform.

Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello’s use of anti-worker political rhetoric and his independent, anti-union and anti-public employee website, Parity in Oklahoma, raises the question whether an elected official can essentially work against the historical and constitutional mandates of a state office.

Costello referred to public employees as “feral hogs” in a recent speech, which has drawn widespread criticism from the Oklahoma Democratic Party, union officials, state employees and teachers. His website, which is not state funded but uses his name and title prominently, argues state and local governments should not collect union dues from paychecks and criticizes the retirement benefits of some state employees. It also supposedly points out the “perks” of public employees and criticizes state merit rules that “actually reward bad employee behavior.”

Certainly, Costello, a Republican, has every right to express his political opinions, which are no doubt shared by many Oklahomans, but his particular office was established to protect workers, not criticize them. His office was also formed through input by unions, which gives it a historical obligation to protect and even foster workers’ rights, not take them away.

Costello might argue that his comments and website are not necessarily official actions of his office, but it’s difficult to separate the rhetoric from his office’s day-to-day operation. What if the state health commissioner, using his name and title prominently, created an independent website urging people to drink alcoholic beverages and to eat unhealthy foods? Would that disconnection be acceptable? What if the state schools superintendents created a site that urged students to drop out of school?

The Oklahoma Department of Labor’s website notes this historical fact:

The Oklahoma Department of Labor was created by the Oklahoma Constitution in 1907. In August of that year, delegates from the Twin-Territorial Federation of Labor, the State Farmers' Union and the Railroad Brotherhoods met in Shawnee, Oklahoma, to formulate a list of demands for the upcoming constitutional convention. One demand called for the establishment of a State Labor Department.

Consequently, when the new state constitution was ratified by the delegates to the constitutional convention in 1907, the Oklahoma Department of Labor was created. Since its inception, the department has functioned continuously under many different commissioners and governors.

The site also notes the commissioner’s responsibilities:

The Commissioner of Labor is responsible for the enforcement of those labor laws that promote fairness and equity in the workforce, including state wage laws, workers' compensation compliance, state OSHA laws for public employers, asbestos compliance, child labor laws and various other duties.

Given the office’s constitutional and historical mandate, the labor commissioner should at the very least have a neutral working relationship with union members in Oklahoma, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. At its recent convention, the Oklahoma AFL-CIO passed a resolution that stated the organization has no confidence in Costello. Some union members want him to resign and argue he’s not fulfilling the mission of his office.

Costello strongly criticized one aspect of the resolution, but he didn’t fully address the point that some people argue his office has a mandate to essentially promote at least some of the achievements of unions, whether he likes it or not.

It does appear, though, that Costello sees his political mission in a larger, national perspective. In a response to the criticism, according to NewsOK.com, he issued a statement that argued:

. . . union militants in Wisconsin last spring and the hard left protest against capitalism in New York today have made their way to Oklahoma. The minions of the hard left have only one belief in common, a loathing of capitalism and a loving of (Democratic President Barack) Obama's re-election prospects.

But his office has no direct connection to promoting capitalism or promoting any particular presidential candidate. His office was established to protect Oklahoma workers.

The ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest in New York and its spinoffs, such as Occupy OKC, are part of a broader movement expressing general frustration and even outrage with growing wealth disparity and a lack of economic justice in this country.

The movement’s strength, of course, is just what the establishment pundits and media claim is its weakness, which is a decentralized, inclusive and local focus. It seems messy and without a precise frame but any movement that can really challenge the status quo will be diametrically opposite in shape and tone to what it challenges.

Its historical roots are protests in late nineteenth-century Gilded Age, which came after similar, growing wealth disparity between the wealthy and the middle-class, and protests in the 1930s in the Great Depression era, which led to worker protections and Social Security.

In an interview with Salon.com, Gary Gerstle, a professor at Vanderbilt who studies social movements, noted that the current Gilded Age has, at least until now, lacked protests. According to Gerstle:

The major difference between this Gilded Age and the last one is the relative absence of protest. In the first Gilded Age, the streets were flooded with protest movements; questions regarding economic inequality and the very viability of capitalism were the defining issues of American politics.

But that could be changing, Gerstle said, with the recent protests in Wisconsin and New York that have spread throughout the country.

The question now, with Occupy Wall Street and the labor protests in Wisconsin this year, is whether the United States is beginning to emerge from that quiet period and whether there will be protests on the left that in some ways match what occurred 125 years ago.

I think the evidence suggests we are entering into a phase of sustained protests—the right labels it “class warfare” as if that’s going to make it go away somehow—as unemployment remains high, salaries stagnate or drop and health costs become prohibitive. Meanwhile, investment bankers continue to enjoy exorbitant salaries after taxpayers bailed them out in 2008 for ruining the economy and the same banks who received federal money are refusing to lend money.

What this country needs is exactly what Occupy Wall Street brings to the table, which is a broad-based protest movement that combines labor interests with modern concerns, such as the environment, in local, specific settings. Labor groups have now marched in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street group and a growing number of politicians have expressed support for the protest.

Here in Oklahoma City, about 300 people met Friday evening in downtown Oklahoma City under the Occupy OKC rubric. Individuals expressed their specific protests at the meeting. Oklahoma also has its own historical roots to protest movements in the 1930s and was once home to two of the country’s most well-known populists, Will Rogers and Woody Guthrie, pictured right, during that period. (Here’s the first installment of my 2004 series on Oklahoma populist heroes.)

What’s interesting to note, as well, is the intersection between Tea Party supporters and Occupy Wall Street supporters, both of whom were generally against the bank bailouts and think the middle-class has been in a severe financial decline even as corporate fortunes soar. In addition, poll after poll shows Americans want higher taxes on the rich in this country.

Can what has been called “the 99 percent” coalesce around economic injustice despite differences on other issues? This is exactly what the corporate establishment doesn’t want to happen.