The Plight of Entitled New York Times Employees

Unionized employees at the New York Times are in an uproar over pending changes to their retirement program. No longer able to afford lavish pension benefits for retirees, the Times is attempting to move to a 401k program that employees would contribute to. The union is outraged of course. What’s interesting here is that for all of the Times attacked Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and any number of businesses who have been forced to change employee retirement programs over the years, the Times is doing exactly the same thing.

The Times has no choice but to freeze their current pension plan and replace it with a 401k. In case the liberal reporters haven’t noticed, circulation is down for all newspapers including the Old Grey Lady. It doesn’t matter that the Times is popular among liberals and intellectual elites. Subscriptions are down and the Times is getting beaten online, badly, by other papers and internet sites. As such revenue is down and with a drop in revenue it comes as no surprise that there needs to be a drop in employee benefits be it in the form of pay, healthcare or pensions.

Hysterical liberal Times employees took to You Tube to grouse about the new retirement program. The reaction of these employees is priceless in that it exposes the root of liberal bias at the paper and it exposes the entitlement mentality of liberals. One woman claims she’ll be living in a cardboard box when she retires, another claims she’ll be living on food stamps. One man wonders if he’ll have to make the choice between living with his kids and suicide. The melodramatic rants are amusing but they really expose the absurdity of the union position. Millions of Americans have 401k programs. In retirement they aren’t being forced to live in cardboard boxes or go on food stamps. They certainly aren’t contemplating suicide.

These liberals seriously believe they are entitled to live off of their employer until the day they die whether they’re working for them or not. The fact is, employers cannot afford this sort of benefit anymore. In fact, taxpayers cannot afford to pay for this sort of benefit for government employees either. This includes the Michigan government school teacher who wants to retire at the age of 47 and get full pension and medical benefits for life. The notion that we must be paid by our employer once we retire, even for decades afterward, must fall by the wayside. No employer (taxpayers included) should be expected to pay former employees massive pensions for decades on end. This sort of lazy entitlement is not only absurd but expensive.

Everyone wants to have enough money set aside so they can have a nice retirement. But a nice retirement isn’t the job of your employer. It was one thing when companies had a lot of money and could lure talent with the prospect of a nice pension. Like it or not, companies cannot afford this sort of entitlement anymore. 401k programs allow employees to contribute to and partially manage their own retirement, something they probably should have been doing all along. Most Americans have such a program, only the most entitled of union employees (mostly government employees) think they’re above it all. The New York Times employees will soon be joining all of us little people with 401k programs. While they’re grousing about it, you might want to invest in some cardboard boxes and while you’re at it invest in dog food. I know of a lot of melodramatic Times employees who will soon be in the market for a well appointed cardboard box and a can of Alpo.