why it matters

Retirement Security

Photo: Jeff Zimmerman

Photo: Jeff Zimmerman

 

A pension is a promise made. It deserves to be a promise kept

Secure, well-funded retirement benefits – including health care – are a critical component of any fair system of compensation for a lifetime of risk and public service. Retirement security is a core issue for CPF and your local union.

Why retirement security matters … for firefighters and their families.

  • The toll of the job. Firefighters take a beating over the course of a career. Job-related illness, debilitating injuries, extraordinary emotional and physical stress. Firefighters deserve a decent retirement.

  • Peace of mind for families. Spouses, children, parents and others also carry the burden of empty nights, weekends and that knot in the pit of the stomach knowing the next call could be the last. A secure retirement protects firefighter families.

  • Simple fairness. Firefighters put a hefty chunk of their pay into retirement based on a simple compact: you put your life on the line for a career, and you get a secure pension at the other end of it.


The union … fighting for your secure retirement

  • The earliest firefighter-sponsored ballot measures, dating back to the 1940s, established local public safety pensions.

  • A critical protection — the California Rule — came about because of a legal action by Long Beach Firefighters

  • For decades, CPF led the fight to enhance and secure pensions, whether it’s enhanced benefits, earlier retirement or restoring stolen payments.

When pensions have come under attack, it is your state and local firefighter unions standing on the front lines.

  • When Pete Wilson tried to raid state pension funds to close the budget gap, firefighters led the fight to pass Proposition 162, the Pension Protection Act.

  • When Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to shut down public pensions altogether … even for the widows and orphans of fallen firefighters … CPF and firefighters were the face of the successful effort to end the pension grab.

  • When anti-retirement activists repeatedly tried to break pension promises through statewide ballot proposals, your state and local unions stood in the way, and defeated those efforts.

The battle to protect retirement security is never over. Wall Street and its advocates have maintained a steady drumbeat of hostility toward pension security for all public workers, singling out firefighters, in particular, as targets.

CPF and your local unions remain committed to fighting these attacks in order to protect the security you’ve earned for putting your lives on the line. 

Making sure that a promise made is a promise kept … because the union is all of us.