New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
The New York Times Company has been negotiating with its newsroom employees since March 31, 2011. The company has offered a contract with a 35-hour work week, keeping the current medical plan intact. However, the company also wants to impose a "pension freeze"--which means no more payments into the current pension plan. Instead, the company would chip in money, equivalent to 3-5% of an employee's pay, into a 401K plan.
The Times reporters think this is outrageously unfair:
Some of my favorite parts:
- The first reporter, doing his darnedest to dress like a humanities professor, complete with bow tie
- The salaries of just $100,000 - $130,000 per year
- Yes, they're all wearing little "Guild" buttons
- The air of insufferable entitlement, especially from the older scribes
Times reporters finally encounter the Obama economy: hilarity ensues. Ricocheters, please tell me your favorite bits in the comments.
For me, the most laughable (and saddest) part comes at 4:15, where a staffer says that in a pension plan, "I at least have the safety of knowing that I have money coming in... at least, it's there for me." The union's line is that a 401K is much riskier because it depends on the market.
Do these people read newspapers? Have they ever heard of what happens to pension plans when companies go under, or when the stock market hiccups? Where do these people think pension plan money sits? In heaven?
Where have they been since the 1970s?
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Nov '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
Guilding the lillies?
Apr '12
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
What's astonishing is that these ostensibly intelligent people seem to have no clue that printed media is in decline in a weak economy. Get hired with better salaries elsewhere? LOL already!
Ok, conspiracy time: Lets say Salzberger and the board are doing this primarily to get the writers to amp up their hostility toward Romney (and the GOP in general).
Dec '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
Dogs,
Is there any chance whatsoever of a very large meteor hitting the NYTimes building in NYC when all the owners, management, and staff are present?
Oh, just let me dream would you.
Regards,
Jim
Aug '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
What an astonishing cultural artifact that video is -- it's a totem for the culture of entitlement. It's also shocking how inarticulate the speakers are; can't a single one string together a fluent, straightforward sentence?
I've been on a defined-contribution plan my entire working career (over 20 years now in Hong Kong). The Times employees' ignorance of how these plans work is staggering, and their assumption that it's impossible to save money on one's own is disturbing.
If you are worried about living a long time and want a guaranteed income every year of retirement, you can take the money from your retirement account when you retire and buy an annuity. Or you can make other choices. Isn't choice popular amongst Times types?
They also seem unaware that they are paying for their older colleagues' retirements through lower salaries, as their younger colleagues will pay for theirs. A defined contribution plan would likely put more money in their pockets, under their own control.
The interviewees' bottom line is a categorical refusal to take responsibility for their own lives. You can't sum up the mindset of the Left any more concisely.
Oct '11
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
"... sends a profound message - potentially - that we are ..." (I blurted "weasel!" here. "You don't deserve cat food, you get weasel pellets!")
"... well I'm appalled, I'm, I'm horrified, I'm sickened ..." (I began to giggle at this point. Still going.)
These are the elite of the left, the sour creme de la creme. Oh, the humanity!
Oct '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
Seems a typical thought process from the Left where someone else has to carry the freight. Heaven forbid that one might have to look out for themselves, or be involved in self determination.
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
My favorite? That ending .... "Without us, the Times is just white space." I don't think a good piece of propoganda is supposed to make you root for the protagonists' demise.
May '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
This is the most entertaining video I've seen in . . . months? No, years. These guys should dump the news biz and go into comedy--they'd be rich! Their financial worries would evaporate.
Sep '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
I hear this all the time from public school teachers.
"I have a masters degree. People with a masters make a lot more in the private sector!"
Ok then, go out and line your pockets in the private sector. I'm sure all the hiring managers out there will be very impressed with your masters in "Education". Or not.
Apr '11
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
Everyone wants the strongest guarantee of future income and money. In an age when large companies seemed and in a sense where perpetual institutions pensions made sense. The times have changed though, old companies are going belly and government is running our of money. Why people insist on taking promises instead of cash amazes me. It is not that your 401K is safer, or will make you more money (maybe it does or doesn't) but you get the money now. Even if the company folds you can't loose the money they have given you.
What is the old saying?
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
Feb '12
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
Formally educated, professionally successful, and earning a comfortable salary, these people see themselves as victims and as children who are incapable of taking care of themselves - such as by setting aside a portion of their yearly income for old age and emergency expenses.
Unbelievable.
This video should be re-issued with three-year-old dubbed whining. ("But I caaaaan't! I can't! I can't! No, you can't make me! No! I caaaan't!")
May '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
Obviously this film is tendentious by nature, so they're going to stick to the script, but I wonder: off camera, do they ever ask the question that goes begging? You know, the question: where will all this money I want come from? Where will it come from, now that the job I do is no longer worth much?
Sep '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
Exactly, Mr Tall. I had a 401K when I was an engineer back in the day, and I was glad to have it. And the notion that a company pension plan is somehow more secure is astonishing. Haven't these intrepid reporters ever heard of United Airlines?
Dec '11
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
Must... fight... the... Schadenfreude!
Sep '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
Was it the agonizing drama, or was it the bow tie that brought the word weasel to mind? For me it's the bow tie.
Edited on April 23, 2012 at 5:52pmMay '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
So, how did this video escape into the real world? Was there -- gasp! -- a mole???
Sep '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
No, it looks as if the union released it themselves, on YouTube. They apparently think they will gain public support from it. Really.
Oct '11
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
dogsbody
Was it the agonizing drama, or was it the bow tie that brought the word weasel to mind? For me it's the bow tie. · 3 hours ago
It was the deep and oh-so-sincere pronouncement of truth -- profound! -- and then the gear-stripping transition to the journalistic qualification "potentially". And the bow tie. I wanted to, well, straighten the bow tie. A lot.
Edited on April 23, 2012 at 8:38pmMay '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
I lament the end of a New York Times that was enjoyable to read. I also lament the magic of newspaper culture: picking up tomorrow's edition, one coherent fixed edition, the night before at a Manhattan news stand.But it's over. The lefties and the Internet killed it. The Paper Newspaper is in the hospice. We know a cemetery plot will be needed soon. And not that it wasn't going to happen anyway, but these particular idiots deserve their fate--which won't be altered by the iPad.I guess whatever ad revenues are left at the NYT will be sprinkled around various web sites.
Aug '10
Re: New York Times Reporters Face "Pension Freeze"
pretty sure the glass wall was a demo kitchen setup at schnippers next door.
that they had to sneak over there and film this is perfect.
surprising that we didnt get to see art brisbane, tom friedman, or mo dowd