{"id":310,"date":"2006-12-11T12:33:51","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T16:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/2006\/12\/11\/huctw-pension-matters\/"},"modified":"2006-12-11T12:50:43","modified_gmt":"2006-12-11T16:50:43","slug":"huctw-pension-matters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/2006\/12\/11\/huctw-pension-matters\/","title":{"rendered":"HUCTW: Pension matters."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the late 60&#8217;s most large corporations* changed their pension plans from defined benefit &#8211; the employer guarantees a specified level of retirement benefits &#8211; to defined contribution &#8211; the employer guarantees a specified level of money applied to investment funds. Harvard, despite a substantially different business model, followed suit.*\u00a0 In the heady days ending in 2001, this seemed like a win-win for management and labor. Subsequent events have shown the down side &#8211; a massive transfer of risk to the retirees. As the attack on pensions continues in the &#8216;private sector&#8217;, I think we should wonder if Harvard will adopt some the business practices du jour. I propose we ask <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.law.harvard.edu\/programs\/lwp\/LWPstaff_larry_beeferman.html\">Dr. Beeferman<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>If elected, I promise that he will get a good hearing with the negotiating committee.<\/p>\n<p>*This is a whole nuther can of worms. Large corporations are &#8220;private&#8221; in the sense that the &#8220;owners&#8221; &#8211; the stockholders &#8211; get to keep the profits**. They do pay taxes. Havard on the other hand is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution of the Commonwealth and does not pay appreciable taxes***.<br \/>\n**after a hefty slice of &#8216;executive compensation&#8217; is chopped off.<\/p>\n<p>***The so called Payment in Lieu of Taxes [PILOT], compared to a &#8216;private&#8217; business is pennies on the dollar of assessed value. The taxpayers of Cambridge pay a substantial opportunity cost, yet Harvard, when administration finds it convenient, regards itself as &#8216;private&#8217;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the late 60&#8217;s most large corporations* changed their pension plans from defined benefit &#8211; the employer guarantees a specified level of retirement benefits &#8211; to defined contribution &#8211; the employer guarantees a specified level of money applied to investment funds. Harvard, despite a substantially different business model, followed suit.*\u00a0 In the heady days ending [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[606],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harvard-labor-matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}