Maybe this is why they need Card Check?
According to Hot Air News:
If anyone wondered why the unions have pressed so hard for the EFCA bill, known better as Card Check, maybe the SEIU’s status can explain a few things. The massive union has long played politics, and plans to spend as much as $85 million in the upcoming election. However, the union finds itself a little short on funding its pension funds while at the same time attacking the investment firm that handles its accounts:
The SEIU, which has pledged $85 million to Democratic campaigns this year, wants this pressure to lead to investment decisions by KKR that Mr. Stern asserts would benefit workers: reduced CEO compensation, higher rank-and-file wages, and more emphasis on environmentalism and politics, instead of profits.
Yet in 2006, the SEIU National Industry Pension Plan, a plan for the rank-and-file members, covering 100,787 workers, was 75% funded. That is, it had three-fourths of the money it needed to pay benefit obligations of workers and retirees.
In contrast, a separate fund for the union’s own employees, numbering 1,305, participants was 91% funded. Even better, the pension fund for SEIU officers and employees, which had 6,595 members, was 103% funded.
As the Sun points out, the SEIU obviously knows how to manage pension funds, as their own funds are not underfunded. KKR manages all three national funds, so the problem doesn’t lie with KKR, either. It’s not the market, either, as all of the funds again The difference is that employers manage the contributions to member pensions, while SEIU execs manage their own funds. SEIU executives seem a lot less concerned about negotiating proper pension contributions for their members than they do for themselves — or for playing politics...click to continue.
