Cuomo Extorts Money From NY State Workers

A union representing a third of New York State's public workers surrendered to coercion by Governor Andrew Cuomo (son of Mario "Maximum Unction" Cuomo, a former NY State Governor) and agreed under duress to make its members poorer. Specifically, no raises for 3 years- meaning inflation will cause them to get poorer- larger payments for health insurance- which should be nationalized anyway- and pension cuts to those already retired- i.e. reneging on contracts with those workers. 2% pay raises are promised in years 4 and 5- which if they're lucky, will mean the workers will just not get any poorer in those years, assuming inflation is no higher than 2%. Of course, promises by rulers to the people are meant to be broken. And also 9 unpaid "furlough" days a year. (Speaking of inflation, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board, which sets rent increases for a million apartment in NYC that the rulers haven't managed to remove from rent stabilization controls yet, is proposing the next yearly increase in rents to be 3% - 5.75% for a one year lease renewal, and 6-9% for a two year renewal. Oh, and for new tenants, there's the standard "vacancy allowance" of 17.75-20% on  top of that.)


The threat Cuomo used to coerce the concessions was to fire 10,000 workers if he didn't get what he demanded. So Cuomo "collectively bargained" the union's surrender. Whereas GOP Governors, like Scott Walker in Wisconsin (a billionaire Koch brothers' stooge) and Mitchell Daniels in Indiana had their Red Chinese-type GOP legislatures pass laws abolishing collective bargaining by the public unions so they can impose their cuts by fiat.


All this is class warfare of course. As U.S. GDP and accumulated wealth is greater than ever, as there are more billionaires and multimillionaires than ever, and as the wealth of the Forbes 400 for example is greater than ever (over a trillion dollars combined!) it is an absurd pretense for the media and politicians to tell people that "times are tough" and "there's no money." In fact, there is plenty of money. The greedy plutocrats who rule behind their politician frontmen simply can never satiate their greed.

As to the GOP lie (never refuted by the "Democrats") that MORE tax cuts for the rich will create jobs: currently the companies in the S & P 500 are hoarding 1.9 TRILLION dollars in cash. They don't use cash to hire workers UNLESS THEY NEED TO. With demand muted, and "productivity" (value squeezed out of workers) ever higher, they have no need to hire people. They don't employ people out of compassion. It's a business decision. But the Democrats, terrible con men who pretend to represent working stiffs, never attack the lies of the Gang Of Plunderers (GOP).