(Sacramento, CA) – The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California, representing 700,000 public and private sector workers, released the following statement from President Bill A. Lloyd following the Administration’s “Pension Roundtable” today:

“Today’s ‘pension roundtable’ was as one-sided as the flawed Stanford “study” it was contrived to promote.  Both reached their conclusions first and selectively crafted their “facts” later.  Both the Stanford report and the roundtable today omitted the voices of workers and pension earners who have given decades of their lives and contributed tens of thousands of dollars from their own paychecks to build the retirement security we all deserve.  

“Also absent from the discussion today was the role Wall Street banks and their risky decisions played in plunging our entire economy into crisis and threatening the retirement security of almost every single American.
 
“California’s workers know better than to let the same people who created this mess tell us that the best way forward is to dismantle and public pensions. These proposals aren’t real solutions for our budget or our retirement security, and the only people who will benefit from their pension schemes are the same Wall Street bankers who got rich while America suffered.

“It’s time for elected leaders to join us in rebuilding California by strengthening retirement security for all Americans and making sure that the big banks and CEOs who crippled our economy are held accountable.”


SEIU California is a coalition of over 700,000 janitors, social workers, security officers, home care workers, school and university employees, healthcare workers, and city, county and state employees represented by SEIU local unions throughout California. We come together to build a better California by fighting to pass policies and elect candidates that benefit working families and advance the issues we care about: affordable healthcare, good wages, retirement security for all, a healthy environment, good schools and universities, and stronger communities. We believe that by working together we can build a California where working families can thrive again.