To hell with pensions. Give it all to the rich.

Here’s more evidence, from the New York Times, of the class war being waged aggressively by the privileged corporate elite against people who work for a living. Slowly but surely we are being stripped of any security. The value of contributions made by wage earners and salaried workers to corporate success is scorned as the fabulously rich renege on obligations to life long employees while hauling cash home by the barge load.

The article is long, but here’s the first two paragraphs:

More Companies Ending Promises for Retirement

The death knell for the traditional company pension has been tolling for some time now. Companies in ailing industries like steel, airlines and auto parts have thrown themselves into bankruptcy and turned over their ruined pension plans to the federal government.

Now, with the recent announcements of pension freezes by some of the cream of corporate America - Verizon, Lockheed Martin, Motorola and, just last week, I.B.M. - the bell is tolling even louder. Even strong, stable companies with the means to operate a pension plan are facing longer worker lifespans, looming regulatory and accounting changes and, most important, heightened global competition. Some are deciding they either cannot, or will not, keep making the decades-long promises that a pension plan involves....

From farther into the article:

...Pension advocates said they were dismayed that rich and powerful companies like I.B.M. and Verizon would abandon traditional pensions.

"With Verizon, we're talking about a company at the top of its game," said Karen Friedman, director of policy studies for the Pension Rights Center, an advocacy group in Washington. "They have a huge profit. Their C.E.O. has given himself a huge compensation package. And then they're saying, 'In order to compete, sorry, we have to freeze the pensions.' If companies freeze the pensions, what are employees left with?"...

Link

You have to wonder when people will get pissed off enough to do something.