Spleen Venting May Reduce Stress
Charlie Price says:
At my age (79) and physical condition I should be avoiding stressful things. I have written congressmen and DOE about my pension concerns for the past several years and get nowhere but put down. I am getting very frustrated and cynical about the whole retirement benefit thing and, for that matter, the state of America in general. When I get into it my blood pressure goes up.
Of the many inequities that CORRE has uncovered, the fact that other DOE contractors get better benefits than we Oak Ridge workers makes me the maddest. During my 30 years working in Oak Ridge I had occasion to work with and visit many of these installations, including Livermore, Los Alamos, Berkely, and some others I have probably forgotten. Folks at these places were no better educated, smarter, or harder working than I was (or better-looking either). But now I find that they get much better benefits that I do. Why? Whose doing is this? How can DOE justify this? Can we find an advocate somewhere who will expose and make this public? Seems that our Tennessee representatives would be embarrassed and want to do something about it. I get the feeling that DOE and my representatives think (probably correctly) that this old man and a few disgruntled retirees will soon die off and the problem will go away.
Well, it helps to vent my spleen I guess. Thanks to CORRE for trying to get some help for us. Let us keep pushing; but it seems that we are trying to push a rope.
November 7th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
How to push a rope: 1) Soak it in water, 2) Strech it straight, 3) Freeze it, 4) Push it where you will.
I know the feeling, Charlie but I do believe that the tone arround the recent CORRE meetings with our antagonists (and our protagonists) is sounding more encouraging. An e-mail to our western local legislators (and any others) would be inorder. The Christmas season would be good timing.
Get that rope out, the cold weather is coming.
Al Brooks
November 7th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Good Post there, Mr. Price! I certainly agree with your sentiments. If our DOE contractor counterparts out West were having their pensions paid by profits earned from their superior work, I could feel better about that, but when I realize that it is part of MY Federal Tax dollars that go to DOE to fund those pensions, and they are significantly larger than mine, it really is a pill that is hard to swallow. It hurts even more when I realize that neither DOE nor their contractors have added a single penny to the Oak Ridge pension fund since 1984.