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Posted on Oct 12, 2011

Alexander Reed Kelly

Mike Hellstrom (left) worked his way up to union leadership after beginning as a rank-and-file member.

Mike Hellstrom, a construction and private sanitation worker for more than two decades, has been involved in union work for 27 years, and he’s tired of watching his friends and colleagues lose their benefits and earnings after laboring for their entire lives.

Hellstrom and four of his colleagues braved blustering winds to stand with Wall Street protesters Wednesday against the loss of workers’ compensation. His union, Laborers Local 108, is a progressive labor organization in the Greater New York area that represents “average blue collar, working class people that go to work every single day and try to earn a living and feed their families and be part of the so-called middle class, which is evaporating before our eyes,” as he put it.

“We’re fighting corporate greed at the bargaining table. Not just for the last three years but for the last 100 years,” he said.

When asked about the cuts that sanitation workers are suffering, he began by acknowledging the need for all members of a company to share the burden of sacrifice during a genuine financial crisis. But workers are giving up much more than executives, he said.

You know, you got companies that want give-back after give-back after give-back. I can understand—if the company is doing bad and the members have to make a sacrifice to save the company—hey, we’re all in that together. But when their profits are still moving forward and they’re taking advantage of a situation and saying to us they expect us to take a greater portion for medical care or give back sick days and holidays or walk back from secured retirement plans that we have right now because they deem them to be toxic investments, that really starts to irk me to the core, especially retirement. If I can invest 40 years of my life into an occupation, I believe 100 percent that that employer has an obligation back to that employee to provide them with a sound secure retirement system, and employers today are just walking away from those obligations in droves.

And what percentage of the men and women working in his field are facing these hardships? “Every single one,” he said. “100 percent.” —ARK

By Andrew J. Hawkins

The banks may have been bailed out – as Occupy Wall Street protesters are fond of chanting – but they are projected to earn lower profits, lose more jobs and dole out fewer sky-high bonuses for the remaining months of 2011, State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli says in a report out today.

A less-profitable Wall Street could mean trouble for the city and state’s fragile economies, which rely disproportionately on strong revenue from the financial sector. Tax collections from Wall Street are predicted to fall this year and may drop even more in 2012, the comptroller is predicting. And declining financial employment is likely to have ripple effects in the larger workforce, where one job lost on Wall Street results in almost two jobs lost in other industries in New York.

The report comes out at a time when anti-Wall Street protesters in New York and around the country are gaining momentum, a fact DiNapoli said is understandable given the market crash in 2008 and the economic recession that followed. But the comptroller also stressed that Wall Street needs to perform well in order for the state’s economy to improve, and while he sympathizes with the protesters, he also advocates for a healthy financial sector too.

“The high-risk, high-reward behavior, now we’re seeing the negative side of that,” DiNapoli told City Hall. “But I’d rather have a more stable, consistent level of profitability.”

Profits on Wall Street are projected to drop by a third from the previous year, barely reaching $18 billion by the end of 2011, DiNapoli says. Profits totaled $27.6 billion in 2010, which was $33.8 billion less than the record set in 2009, still the second-best year on record. Although profits spiked during the first half of 2011, expenses grew even faster.

Even though the banks rebounded in the second half of 2010, the comptroller is not anticipating a similar bounce this year after the release of advance reports of poor third-quarter performance at several major firms.

Likewise, the financial sector could lose nearly 10,000 more jobs by the end of 2012, in addition to 4,100 cutbacks already recorded this year. That could bring total job losses on Wall Street to 32,000 since January 2008.

Despite that hemorrhaging of jobs, total compensation for Wall Street workers rose 18.7 percent in the first half of the year. Cash bonuses are projected to fall for the second year in a row as the industry adopts regulations to discourage high-risk, high-reward compensation, but the average salary in the securities industry grew by 16 percent to $361,330, almost six times higher than the average salary in the private sector.

Wall Street had a strong start in 2011, DiNapoli said, but the worsening economy will cool those prospects considerably for the rest of the year.

“It’s still an important part of our economy. But because of all the uncertainty and volatility, we’re projecting for the second part of this year not as strong a level of profit as we anticipated at the beginning of this year,” the comptroller said. “That’s why we do need this sector of our economy to be long-term and sustainable.”

Meanwhile, Occupy Wall Street is entering its fourth week of demonstrations. Today, community groups and labor unions that organized the massive demonstrations last Wednesday are planning a similar march in Midtown today to push for the extension of the millionaire’s tax, demonstrating at the homes of well-off New Yorkers. President Barack Obama is advocating for a tax increase on high-income earners at the federal level, while Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders have said a similar tax at the state level is a non-starter.

Michael Kink, executive director for the Strong Economy For All Coalition and one of the organizers of the march, said the comptroller’s report should serve as a wake-up call for politicians and Wall Street alike.

“This is more proof that our current give-the-rich-anything-they-want approach to the economy isn’t working,” Kink said. “To build mass prosperity, we need public and private institutions to make decisions that benefit all of us, not just some of us. Fairer taxes, more jobs, and investments in education and human services that will pay off in the long run are a better way to go.”

DiNapoli, who will be on both Brian Lehrer and David Paterson’s radio shows today to discuss the report, said he understands the anger and frustration of the Occupy Wall Street protesters, but sought to underscore the importance of the financial sector to the state’s overall economy.

“Wall Street has always been a part of our economy, and always will be,” he said. “But we want it to be responsible in terms of the investment strategy. There’s a lot of anger on the streets out there. That’s what those demonstrations are reflective of.”

Cuomo, standing in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral at the start of the Columbus Day parade yesterday, expressed a similar sympathy for the protesters.

“I think it’s a metaphor for the frustration. I think it’s real,” he said. “Am I surprised? No. I’m out there every day talking to the people. And it is very, very hard, and it has been for a long time.”

Posted on Oct 12, 2011

Alexander Reed Kelly

Mike Hellstrom (left) worked his way up to union leadership after beginning as a rank-and-file member.

Mike Hellstrom, a construction and private sanitation worker for more than two decades, has been involved in union work for 27 years, and he’s tired of watching his friends and colleagues lose their benefits and earnings after laboring for their entire lives.

Hellstrom and four of his colleagues braved blustering winds to stand with Wall Street protesters Wednesday against the loss of workers’ compensation. His union, Laborers Local 108, is a progressive labor organization in the Greater New York area that represents “average blue collar, working class people that go to work every single day and try to earn a living and feed their families and be part of the so-called middle class, which is evaporating before our eyes,” as he put it.

“We’re fighting corporate greed at the bargaining table. Not just for the last three years but for the last 100 years,” he said.

When asked about the cuts that sanitation workers are suffering, he began by acknowledging the need for all members of a company to share the burden of sacrifice during a genuine financial crisis. But workers are giving up much more than executives, he said.

You know, you got companies that want give-back after give-back after give-back. I can understand—if the company is doing bad and the members have to make a sacrifice to save the company—hey, we’re all in that together. But when their profits are still moving forward and they’re taking advantage of a situation and saying to us they expect us to take a greater portion for medical care or give back sick days and holidays or walk back from secured retirement plans that we have right now because they deem them to be toxic investments, that really starts to irk me to the core, especially retirement. If I can invest 40 years of my life into an occupation, I believe 100 percent that that employer has an obligation back to that employee to provide them with a sound secure retirement system, and employers today are just walking away from those obligations in droves.

And what percentage of the men and women working in his field are facing these hardships? “Every single one,” he said. “100 percent.” —ARK

In Lansing, a state House panel began hearings on proposed auto insurance changes today. Dozens of people in wheelchairs who sustained injuries from car accidents packed into the room to ask lawmakers not to change the state’s no-fault law.

The measure before the committee would allow drivers to choose lower rates by reducing their level of coverage.

Attorney George Sinas is with a coalition of doctors, hospitals and trial lawyers that oppose the proposed changes. He says he is concerned with a particular change to Michigan’s personal injury protection benefits law.

“This bill eliminates the current full-time protection for lifetime medical coverage,” he says. “No one, no one will be able to buy it anymore. I don’t care how rich you are or how much you need it, or how much you want it. It is unavailable.”

Sinas says that’s because drivers could not buy auto insurance that would cover more than $5 million dollars in medical bills.

Supporters of the change say the state’s no-fault model is unsustainable because of ballooning medical costs.

Sharon Tennyson, an associate professor from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was commissioned to the research by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

“The easiest, the simplest fix is to place an upper limit on the no fault benefits,” she said. “Nobody needs unlimited injury benefits. We can argue about how much is enough-we can argue about how much is enough.”

That comment drew titters and smirks from many no-fault-insurance supporters at the hearing.

A former state lawmaker, Republican Jim Howell, spoke out this week against the changes. He says his son, who sustained a terrible brain injury in a car accident, would mostly likely be dead if not for no fault auto insurance coverage. He says he is concerned that lawmakers want to use a technicality in the proposal to keep voters from challenging a new law on the ballot.

“This bill has a $50,000 dollar appropriation in it, and it’s to implement the bill. Number one, that probably isn’t enough money to implement the bill, but number two, if they want to put money in to implement the bill they can run it through the appropriations process and it will have nothing to do with this,” he says.

Bills with appropriations cannot be challenged by referendum.