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CAMBRIDGE, MA – With two months left before the Democratic Special
primary election in the race to fill the State Senate seat vacated
last week by Senator Jarrett Barrios, Progressive candidate Jeff Ross
spoke with union representatives about workers losing the battle for a
basic standard of living. “It is an alarming trend. Year by year, health
care and pension benefits are being siphoned off,” said Ross, whose
grandfather was a firefighter and whose brother is a career-long union
member. |
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Companies
increasingly cut benefits outright or defer raises ostensibly in order
to finance the remaining benefits. “These are life-size concerns for
workers, many of whom are earning less in real terms than they did in
1996 and losing their health insurance.”
Furthermore, employees at many companies
are no longer assured that their hard-earned pensions will actually
materialize when they retire. Ross cited an example of an airline
customer service employee who had worked for decades for his company
only to see his pension cut in half at the age of 54. Further, when
corporations go into bankruptcy, the law gives bankruptcy judges
enormous discretion to cancel company pension plans as a means to
revitalize its operations. “While such moves save large corporations,
they leave the older generation of employees who rely on the fixed
pension income entirely out in the cold,” said Ross.
Health and safety concerns are paramount
in today’s workplace. Under the Bush Administration, OSHA has
abandoned its leadership role in safety and health, preferring to work
with individual employers, rather than bringing about broad and
meaningful change in working conditions on an industry-wide and
national level. In Massachusetts, this means that “standards are out
of date or non-existent for many workplace hazards,” said Ross. Ross,
who is an attorney, has represented and advocated on behalf of workers
injured on the job. “I am the candidate who has been in the trenches
every day picking up the broken pieces, fighting for rights of injured
workers.”
Ross also has several years’ experience
representing and advocating on behalf of union employees in post
grievance, employment discrimination and employee due process rights.
“I have deep concerns about these issues,” said Ross. “As Senator, I
will champion health care and safety in the workplace and work toward
fair labor standards,” said Ross. |
