Cuomo, Bloomberg Work Together On Pension Overhaul

I guess the new normal in New York State will be to have a new pension tier every two years.:

The retirement age for city workers would be jacked up to 65 and new hires would be forced to pay more for their pension plans under sweeping reforms backed by Gov. Cuomo.

Signaling a thaw after their brutal budget brawl, Cuomo is "working with Mayor Bloomberg so that when we do pension reform, it covers the entire state," a Cuomo administration source told the Daily News on Sunday.

Bloomberg has agreed to modify a proposal for new hires he put out in February to conform with the governor's so-called Tier 6 plan, a second Cuomo source said..

Until now, there was some question as to whether the Albany reforms would extend to the city's powerful municipal unions - the Tier 5 changes in 2009 exempted city workers.

The governor wants the Legislature to agree to set a retirement age of 65 for new hires, end early retirement and take overtime out of the pension calculation to prevent what's known as "padding" or "spiking."

He also wants union workers to contribute twice as much to their retirement.

The city, along with other municipalities, has long complained that funding pensions for retirees is a crushing taxpayer burden that can't be sustained as is.

While changing the system for future hires won't address the current issue, proponents say it's crucial in the long term.

"Gov. Cuomo said our taxes are way too high. New York is becoming less and less affordable," the first Capitol source said. "We need to make the state affordable again. ... That's what pension Tier 6 is - it's just another tool."

The unions responded:

Bloomberg's February proposal, seen by some in the labor community as more aggressive than the governor's program, enraged union leaders such as Harry Nespoli of the Municipal Labor Committee.

"The mayor just set back labor relations 40 years," Nespoli said at the time. "We're fed up with this. [He's] going to have a battle. We're not just going to roll over."

Denis Hughes, head of the state AFL-CIO and monitor of the city's Central Labor Council, which is in the process of seeking a new leader to replace former boss Jack Ahern, says neither the Cuomo nor Bloomberg plan is necessary because the economy is on the mend.

"There's really no need for either of these plans, because [the] return on investments in both the state and the city plans have resulted in a decrease in the contribution [governments] have to make to maintain these pension plans," Hughes said.

"The diminishment of the economic security of working men and women is not necessary," Hughes said.

I have yet to see the unions not roll over in the end in the battle against the oligarchs.

We'll see if they actually fight this or just, you know, roll over.