Politics The Benefits of Lying?
The Democrats are pouncing on GOP senate candidate Mike McGavick. They say he lied on the air yesterday on KUOW about his record of cutting benefits for SAFECO employees while he was SAFECO’s CEO.
Here’s the Dems got ya press release:
LYING ABOUT CUTTING BENEFITS AT SAFECO
WHAT MIKE SAID:“I didn’t cut raises and benefits for employees while I was at Safeco.”
“About benefits, about cutting others earnings, no we did not do that. In fact we did the reverse.”
[about 1:55 pm, 4/5/06, KUOW “The Conversation”]
THE TRUTH: MIKE CUT BENEFITS AT SAFECO
§ According to the company’s own filings with the US government, SIGNED by Mike McGavick himself, the company cut benefits. Their annual report for 2003 reported the following cuts, leading to the following newspaper quote: “Safeco recently announced it would cut retiree health benefits for newer and younger workers while lowering the subsidy for some current retirees.” [Seattle Times, 10/20/03]
Indeed, citing page 116 in SAFECO’s 2003 annual report, the D’s highlight these SAFECO policies:
1. Cutting Benefits For Older Employees, Retirees: reducing its share of healthcare benefits for current retirees and soon to retiree employees, making the current and near-future retirees pay more2. Cutting Benefits For Future Retirees: Breaking the promise of ANY contribution to retiree health costs for younger employees, forcing them to cover all costs.
3. Cutting ALL Retirement Health Benefits For Youngest Employees: Cutting ALL access and help with retirement healthcare and life insurance benefits for the youngest employees and all future employees. During 2003, our OPRB [other post-retirement benefits] program was amended. For current retirees and employees who are age 50 and over with sufficient service time by December 31, 2004, we will continue to subsidize a portion of the cost of retiree healthcare benefits, but at a reduced rate. The rate of increase in our subsidy for these healthcare benefits will be capped in future years. We will also continue to provide a capped amount of retiree life insurance benefits to current retirees and employees age 50 and over with sufficient service time. For current employees age 36 or older who do not otherwise meet the above requirements, we will provide access to our group healthcare plan at retirement, but participants will pay the entire cost of coverage.
These actions resulted in OPRB curtailment gains totaling $15.2 pretax in 2003.
When I pointed out to Democratic spokesperson Viet Shelton that Mike McGavick is a Republican, and so, should be proud of making tough decisions to help SAFECO financially, Shelton laughed and said: “OK, but the problem is, McGavick said he didn’t cut benefits.” More to the point, Shelton added, “We have documentation that he did cut benefits. One has to wonder what he’s willing to say to get elected.”
Too-shay.
Maybe he's arguing semantics; after all, he didn't just CUT benefits, he SLASHED them.