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October 6, 2011

Video: Mulgrew and teachers union occupy Wall Street

by Geoff Decker, at 1:36 pm

Wall Street marches are nothing new for Michael Mulgrew. In May, Mulgrew and his predecessor at the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, marched with thousands from City Hall to Wall Street in protest of a budget deficit that threatened to lay off more than 4,000 teachers.

Last night, Mulgrew and members from the UFT were back in the familiar setting.  This time, they were in a 15,000-people march that was part of Occupy Wall Street. After meeting at Foley Square for a rally, where leaders from more than a dozen unions spoke (Here’s Mulgrew’s complete speech), the crowd chanted, sang and danced its way downtown to Liberty Square, where a smaller contingent has taken up residence for the last two weeks.

GothamSchools was there to capture some scenes from the march (before the violence and arrests broke out) and to speak to teachers about why they attended. Some said they were there to experience a historic moment. Others said it was to lend support to their union.

“Our union has stood for social justice,” said John Bartley, a teacher in Queens. “It’s not about our union only protecting our own people.”

Mostly, people said they thought the country’s wealthy did not shoulder enough of the tax burden and wanted change. Mulgrew was more specific. With more cuts to the city’s Department of Education expected, Mulgrew said he wants New York State to extend the so-called “Millionaire’s Tax,” a surcharge on people who make more than $200,000 and families that make more than $300,000, before it expires at the end of the year.

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  • Anonymous

    so, a millionaire is someone who makes $200K per year?

  • Larry Littlefield

    Well I didn’t mind the TWU joining occupy Wall Street.  After all they didn’t get the 20/50 pension deal they went on strike for, and also didn’t agree with a “screw the newbie” deal for their future members.  The MTA is being wrecked primarily by debts.  But the UFT is being dishonest in pretending to be a friend of the screwed next generation. 

    And it is only to the extent that Wall Street continues to rip off the rest of the country, with the resulting income taxed locally, that the purported “zero” cost of the UFT’s own pension deals won’t completely wreck the schools.  I wonder if union officials really want Wall Street pay to fall back to its level, relative to the rest of us, of 25 years ago.  After all, the pension deals cannot be rolled back even if they agreed.

  • Larry Littlefield

    In case anyone want to claim I’m spouting off with nothing behind it…

    http://www.local237.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=144&Itemid=119.

  • il flerpolo

    Re: 20/50, I recall that being just about the only pension giveaway that Pataki didn’t sign off on.    

  • Larry Littlefield

    Yep, and he loved running up debts too.  But when it comes to wrecking the future how was he different from any other political, union, or business leader of the past decade or three? 

    So now the limited number of people that got better deals during this period are pointing fingers at each other.  And showing up in support for the young people left with nothing better to do than  protest.  And meanwhile, the cost is shifted to future generations.

    How are the NYC public employee unions different from Republicans who want even more Medicare spending for those now 55 and up, paid for with borrowed money, to be paid back by slashing old age benefits for those now 54 and under?

  • TIREDOFYOU

    Two peas in a pod. Two non educators WHO CARE SO MUCH ABOUT EVERYONE’S PENSION’S Larry little brain and the LAWYER THE TROLL
    GOD GET A LIFE BOTH OF YOU.
    YOU BOTH DESERVE EACH OTHER, NOBODY ELSE WILL TALK TO YOU

  • http://twitter.com/nycdoenuts NYCDOEnuts

    Hey, way to defend the well-to-do during this time of economic hardship! Really, great job

  • Smith

    Was E4E there?  Or the charter school crowd?

  • Anonymous

    thanks.

    please define a millionaire.

  • Anonymous

    once again, Larry tells it like it is.

  • Larry Littlefield

    Two points about the millionaires.  They have a sweet deal at the federal level, where they take their income in capital gains exempt from the payroll tax and taxed at a lower rate under the income tax.  Not in New York State.

    It may not be as progressive as you like, but New York City has one of the more progressive state and local tax bases in the country, according to data released each year by the District of Columbia government.  It also has just about the highest state and local taxes in the country, as a percent of its resident’s personal income.  If a separate state, according to Census Bureau data, it would be higher than any other state save Alaska and Wyoming, where most of the taxes are on oil and other minerals not residents and businesses.

    You can say we don’t have enough tax revenue, but we have more than anyone else.  NYC used to have low public school spending, and I said so at the time, but not anymore.

    And, as mentioned, the fact is that “the rich” haven’t really earned all that money.  I don’t begrudge the late Steve Jobs, but the rest?  If there was more justice under CAPITALIST principles, let alone socialist, they’d have a lot less income to tax.  

    I’ll keep the percent of my savings in stocks low until they cut executive pay and increase dividends to investors (the yield is now about 2.0%).  But I’m still screwed, because I’m on the hook as a taxpayer for the executive pay inflating investments of the PUBLIC EMPLOYEE PENSION FUNDS.

  • http://twitter.com/nycdoenuts NYCDOEnuts

    Larry says you’re welcome.
     Says here in my four year old’s dictionary, anyone worth at least a million bucks. Would you like to borrow my four year old’s dictionary?? I’d like to make just three points if I may:1. You can still be worth one million dollars if you make ONLY 200,000 per year (just my impression. You may want to check the facts). 2. Cute names like the millionaire’s tax are just nicknames given to pieces of legislation my politicians in order to make them sound pretty (Mr. Bush was famous for getting pieces of legislation passed that had names that implied one thing, yet clearly had the effect of doing something else). The Millionaire’s tax sounds like they’re taxing the top 3 or 4 percent of NY income earners (at about 200,000 income per year).3.  Larry, I take it that you feel that public civil servants are to blame for this and not Wall Street greed? Would you care to meet up for coffee tomorrow and say so publicly? I know a great Starbucks on Broadway. Say 4:00?

  • http://twitter.com/nycdoenuts NYCDOEnuts

    The coffee is on me Larry. I get this great deal at Starbucks through my union (the UFT)

  • michael

    Just like Mulgrew to jump on the bandwagon. What about the ATR’s? To this day he has done nothing for them. Picture going to a different school every week, never knowing the students you teach, and getting little or no respect from these students. Mulgrew is just hoping the ATR’s just quit, and go away. I say all ATR’s demand all their union dues back, with interest. They then should hire a attorney to start a class action suit against the city, and yes, the UFT for not representing them from this horrible situation.

  • il flerpolo

    The present value of the pensions of many retiring NYC teachers is worth well over a $1 million.  That is, if, like the rest of us, you had only a 401K, you’d need more than $1 million in assets to be in the same position.   To be clear, I’m not suggesting people with these pensions should pay a “millionaire’s tax.”  I’m merely suggesting that you hone that talking point. 

  • il flerpolo

    The present value of the pensions of many retiring NYC teachers is worth well over a $1 million.  That is, if, like the rest of us, you had only a 401K, you’d need more than $1 million in assets to be in the same position.   To be clear, I’m not suggesting people with these pensions should pay a “millionaire’s tax.”  I’m merely suggesting that you hone that talking point. 

  • http://twitter.com/nycdoenuts NYCDOEnuts

    Yikes, well if it’s up against folks who will compare a public servant’s pension to a private employee’s personnel retirement contribution, then sure, I’ll hone it. 
    But I would like employ reason and suggest that your comparison is completely full of crap! 
    Curious, how do I hone that one??
    Anyway, this is all off topic for this site. I’ll be on Twitter if you want to (actually) have this debate. If not, I’ll let whoever get the last word in.

  • Larry Littlefield

    I’ll be working tomorrow at 4 pm up in Midtown.  I wrote about the relationship of Wall Street and civil servants here.

    http://www.r8ny.com/blog/larry_littlefield/point_of_intersection_between_the_years_in_retirement_rich_and_the_bonus_rich.html

    Can’t be more public than that.

  • il flerpolo

    This should be an obvious point, but I’ll add that comparisons based on net-present value calculations vastly *understate* the relative value of public employee pensions.   A 401K can fail to keep pace with inflation, or decrease in value.  Pension returns are backed by the same assets that you find in 401Ks, but the pensioner doesn’t much care how the assets perform, because the returns are guaranteed by law.  Taxpayers (mainly the 401K and sub-401K crowd, i.e. people with less assets than those they subsidize) have to make up the difference. 

  • http://twitter.com/nycdoenuts NYCDOEnuts

    Apologies, I swore I wouldn’t come back to respond, but … 

    flerpolo… I didn’t mean to say I didn’t SEE your point.I meant to say that your point is completely full of crap! I really should work on my articulation.You see, teachers arrange a different deal with their society than, you in the private sector, do. We agree to serve our community (at a really tough job) for pay that is (compared to similarly educated people) much much lower. 

    In exchange for holding this lower paying job for thirty years, we receive a fixed income pension (and an annuity which is tax deferred. Kind of like your 401k only much MUCH better AND at tax payer expense) for the rest of our lives. This pension is, in my case, about 60% of my (lower to begin with pay). 

    Comparing a private sector 401k that you claimed you have (which is based on assets obtained from the higher rate of pay throughout your career), to a fixed income pension (based on the lower rate throughout my career) may very well make sense to you at first glance.

    Heck, I’m sure it may even add up to, over the 15 or 20 years I live in retirement (I’ll live much longer because of my amazing free healthcare.. paid, throughout my career AND retirement by the tax payer (thank you, tax payer!)), a million bucks. But the comparison itself (the one you made) is based on a narrative, and an outlook, that is really false in nature. 

    Yes, teachers receive great perks after retirement, however.–>receiving a pension that may or not be worth a million bucks throughout the life of the pension does not make a person a millionaire. <– I'm very very sorry. The statement was full of crap. Completely. 

    Being worth, as defined (at least in my four year old's dictionary), as having (at any one given time) a million bucks? That makes you a millionaire.  

    But that's a not what I came back to say. I just wanted to say, Larry (and to flerpolo as well), the coffee is free, but the Starbucks is downtown. On Broadway, about three blocks from Wall Street, actually. If you can't make it from Midtown from 4, then I'd be happy to wait. 

    But in order to get the free coffee, you'd have to go down there and -in public- assert that public servants are the ones we should blame for the collapse and not the rich Wall Street bankers -just like you did in yoru earlier comments.

    I'll be there at five. Just send me a tweet when you're there ( at    
     nycdoenuts) and I'll show up.
     
    Ok, I now PROMISE you the last, last, very last word.
     

  • il flerpolo

    I wasn’t suggesting you didn’t understand my point. I was
    simply adding something to my post, rather than responding to you. But maybe you didn’t understand the point after all.  

    You asserted (very condescendingly) that it is assets, not salary, that
    determine “wealth” for purposes of defining who is
    “wealthy.”  A millionaire, you
    said, is simply someone with $1 million, even if that someone has a salary of
    $200,000.  I simply pointed out that your definition of the “wealthy” would include a lot of retiring teachers, and I suggested that you think of a new definition if you don’t like that outcome.Your response is to argue that pensions and 401ks cannot be compared because pension benefits part of some kind of contract between teachers and “society.”  I’ll leave aside the naive idea that union contracts and public employee pension legislation result from negotiations between “teachers” and “society.”  In essence,  all you’re saying is that pension benefits are part of
    the compensation that teachers sign up for when they decide to become teachers.  As an initial matter, this argument doesn’t account for retroactive
    pension enhancements that happened after teachers signed up. (You could argue
    that those enhancements are not windfalls to the extent they came in exchange
    for concessions on other aspects of the job that teachers valued when they
    signed up. I’d be skeptical, but it’s a potential argument.) But the important
    point for this conversation is that pensions are part of teachers’ compensation
    in the same way that private
    employees’ 401k’s are (the 401k is funded by a portion of salary).  There are differences in the degree of control
    each has over the compensation. People don’t have to put their salary into a
    401k if they don’t want to. They can choose to use it instead to buy a bigger
    TV or a mortgage they can’t afford.  You
    can’t do those things with pension benefits until the payments are made. A
    pension isn’t “money” that you can spend at a store. Neither is an
    annuity, or gold bullion, or crude oil. But they’re all assets with present
    value and can absolutely be compared.These are very basic concepts.  

     

  • http://twitter.com/nycdoenuts NYCDOEnuts

    If anything I wrote or implied came off as condescending, I’m very sorry. I place a much higher premium on civility than that.

    I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that a pension is an asset the same as a 401k or oil. This is simply not true and it clearly represents the basis of our disagreement. A pension is not an asset that is comparable to a 401k. I’m sorry, but this notion is absurd. True, it does disagree with a narrative that is being put out by center-right moderates, conservatives and DFER people who want to destroy teacher unions, but it is simply not true. 

    I cannot sell my pension upon retirement. I cannot see the full value of my pension in a fund every month. I do not need to reach a certain number in savings in my pension in order to have a retirement (no need to stay on the green line for me). I cannot choose to take a higher amount from my pension if I fall on hard times. Lookit: It is not an asset.

    I am aware that, to someone in the private sector, the notion of a contract struck between a civil servant and society (my state or local government), strikes many people as absurd. It is, however, the case. We strike a deal whereby we are paid at a smaller rate during the life of our careers. We accept this deal in exchange for a little more job security, and much better benefits. These benefits include retirement. 

    I am sorry if this is the first time you have heard of this argument. It is, however, an old and familiar truth. It does run counter to other narratives about workers (which is why I assert every chance I get) but it is the case.

    And it is the law. My pension is protected at its current rate precisely because, legally, it is recognized as a deal struck between my state and myself. This is why the government must create new tiers for new hires when they need to reform pensions (because those are new deals with new employees). I’m a little taken back at a person as smart as you suggesting that this notion is naive. 

    You are correct about what I would argue.
     

    I missed you for coffee! I still encourage you to go visit the #ows park downtown.  They’re all still there and they’re there for discussion. I saw civil debates between liberals and libertarians on my visit. I’m sure your point of view would have been respected and heard as well, as it is an important one given the troubles we’re all going through these days.

    Just curious, did it sound to you like you’re overreaching when you implied  that a retired teacher is a millionaire?  Or did it genuinely sound like it made sense given the point I was making. I mean it doesn’t make sense to me that anyone could assert that a retired teacher was a millionaire. perhaps I’m still lost as to what point you were trying to make.

  • il flerpolo

    “I am not sure how you came to the conclusion that a pension is an asset the same as a 401k or oil. This is simply not true and it clearly represents the basis of our disagreement. A pension is not an asset that is comparable to a 401k.”
    This appears to be boiling down to a dispute over the definition of “asset” (which is really a waste of time, since the term has an established meaning — in accounting, finance, and even colloquial speech — that encompasses pension benefits).  To you, the essence of an asset is liquidity.  If you can’t sell it, it’s not an asset.  I don’t see the use of that definition.  I assume you wouldn’t dispute that a pension is worth something.  The question is how much it’s worth.  High school math and an actuarial table can give you the answer.  I tried to explain this.  All I can do now is refer you to economics textbooks.  Most of the kids occupying Wall Street will not retire.  In 50 years, they won’t be spending their “golden years” sailing around the world or relaxing on beaches like the baby boomers in Fidelity advertisements.  They won’t be spending their golden years modestly, but happily, reading on the porch and playing a round of golf now and then. They won’t have any golden years.  They may not even have Social Security.  Ask them in 50 years if someone who retires at 55 or 57 with a guaranteed income for life is “wealthy.”"I mean it doesn’t make sense to me that anyone could assert that a retired teacher was a millionaire. perhaps I’m still lost as to what point you were trying to make.”Probably best to just leave it at that.  I don’t see any forward movement between us.

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