Endangered Species: Workers with Pensions

A Nearly Extinct Animal

Employees with pensions are not quite dinosaurs yet, we are probably more in the category of the spotted owl. Our rapidly diminishing group now consists almost entirely of unionized public sector employees, working people who earned all kinds of benefits for simply doing their jobs over a long period of time and then, obligingly, getting old.

I think of my pension as an inheritance of sorts, a kind of consolation prize when friends talk about their windfalls from dead relatives. It may not be much, but it arrives each month without any effort on my part allowing me to sit and my computer and feel like a paid writer.

Sunday, I was chatting with a realtor at a Berkeley street fair who appeared to be around my age. Her reaction to my obvious delight at being retired was one I have encountered often. It involves an enthusiastic proclamation of job love coupled with a desire to work until reaching death's door. I have no reason not to believe her. I know Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court feels this way as well. Republicans and some Democrats have even kicked around raising the retirement age so folks can enjoy their jobs well into their dotage. 

But many working-class folks have stressful, demeaning jobs that, as the body ages, wring the very life and spirit from them. It is not a blessing to be forced to perform this type of work until 70 years of age. Part of the conundrum professors and doctors, lawyers and CEOs face is that the simple fact of admitting that work is a moderately unpleasant chore for the majority of workers underlines a hard truth of capitalism:  in order for some people to excel at fulfilling and meaningful work, many others have to service them and their needs. They used to need to make the goods as well but this is less of an issue now that the manufacturing industry is drying up.

I am extremely grateful that I snagged one of the last working-class gems of a bygone era but also very depressed that the welfare of the generations behind me will be left up to chance. Those with prudent and frugal relatives or prominent families may have something to fall back on. But regular working people's options are being sharply reigned in by feeding frenzy of plutocratic capitalism. 

The World on Tuesdays

Things happen every day in the world that working people know nothing about. For example, now that I have been retired a couple of weeks I've discovered that my town, Berkeley, has a big farmer's market on Tuesday afternoons. Seventeen years of missed Tuesdays, can I really account for that? Clearly, many folks fill cafes and stores every week day. They must be either unemployed or work odd hours.

Tuesdays are full of other wonders as well. Elections invariably take place on them. Yesterday was an example of this phenomenon. The despicable Scott Walker won out easily over the recall efforts thereby demonstrating the devastating impact of Citizens United and just what money can purchase in our increasingly no-holds barred plutocratic society. The corporations and the 1% outspent the now-decimated unions and progressive groups seven to one. The senate Republicans also managed to block the Paycheck Fairness Act a followup bill to the Lily Ledbetter legislation that would mandate equal pay for women.

It's hard to know what will come next. The repression against the 99% has been largely successful. There seems to be only a small percentage of Americans who are capable of independent thought. The splintering of the various subgroups and caucuses is evident to those of us who are still active. Old prejudices keep rearing their ugly heads. I have every intention to keep on keepin' on but, as you can probably deduce, I am quite depressed at this juncture.

On another subject,  retirement is solidifying as a reality for me now. Sunday, the Emu, better known as my somewhat domesticated partner Deborah, threw me a retirement party with fabulous cuisine and even more fabulous friends. Thirty-two people of all genders and orientations filled the tiny cottage and yard. The one thing they all have in common is that they live large, not in the sense of consuming material goods, but in the sense that they all have hearts and minds that stretch far beyond the limits of a circumscribed life that revolves around the nuclear family. The second thing they all had in common was that they are my friends, a simple fact that makes me eternally grateful. I want to thank all of them for their warm wishes and support!

Approaching the End of Working Life

I just can't face any more contract concessions at my workplace. The last negotiations didn't go well. They began with pink slips from Gavin Newsom and his city cohorts and ended with pay cuts and furlough days. Only the MUNI transportation workers resisted the bad deal and voted no on workers shouldering the financial pain. 

I fought hard against the concessions but, like a cat who refuses to go gently into her box to be taken to the vet, all that kicking, scratching and stretching out my claws to hold onto the sides was wasted energy, I knew that, in spite of my best efforts, I would wind up in that box. It was easy to see that the people pushing me there were not only bigger and stronger but had all the power and authority on their side. 

So, I accepted the vet and life in the box and it's really not that bad because I am in the company of the finest of felines. Knowing this has served to make my demotion back into the class from which I came not only tolerable but a starting point for organizing. 

With new contract negotiation going on combined with the fact of my advancing age and a far more oppressive workplace, I have decided to bid adieu to the working world and spend the rest of my days writing, dismantling capitalism and traveling. I am so lucky to have a pension, and eventually I will also have social security, so that I can make this decision. 

At first, the thought of breaking with work was hard, what would I do with all that unstructured time? Now, it seems difficult to believe that I was able to make the demands of work palatable at all. In psychology this process is called resolving cognitive dissonance. 

I will be a retired librarian soon. They say when one door closes another opens, so I'm looking forward to not being stuck in that proverbial hallway too long. My conscious keeps repeating, Close the door, Joan, close that goddamn door! "Blow out your candles, Laura...and so goodbye."