IFT takes on Tribune and Commercial Club attacks on public pensions
Ed Geppert, President of the IFT, and Ken Swanson, President of IEA, have written a response to the Tribune and the Commercial Club of Chicago continuing onslaught on the Illinois pension system. The union leaders suggest that the Tribune has been used as a tool of terror. Please find below the commentary by Geppert and Swanson, response by Eden Martin (Commercial Club) and the Tribune.
Teachers: Don’t blame us for mess
By Ed Geppert and Ken Swanson
August 19, 2010Dennis Byrne’s Aug. 10 column on Illinois’ financially imperiled pension system struck a nerve. The presidents of the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers have responded with an essay that says the Tribune is being used as a “tool of terror.” The IEA Web site says the Tribune is “waging a relentless war against public employees over state pensions” and claims the “real author” of Byrne’s column was Eden Martin, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
In the interest of debate, we present the essay from the IEA and IFT, and a response from Eden Martin.
How much longer will the Chicago Tribune allow itself to be used as a tool of terror by millionaire Eden Martin in his quest to deprive hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans of the reasonable retirement they, in large part, have paid for?
The Aug. 10 opinion piece, ostensibly written by public relations specialist Dennis Byrne, is a blatant attempt to frighten and intimidate innocent people who simply expect the State of Illinois to keep its promises.
Byrne/Martin’s claim that the state pension shortfall was caused by overly-generous pension benefits paid to state employees and teachers is provably false. And they know it.
