EPISODE 307

Pensions are quickly becoming a thing of the past, to the point where union members rely on Social Security like everyone else. The Alliance for Retired Americans advocates for the retirement security of all working people, including millions of union members. Executive Director Rich Fiesta says that everyone has a stake in preserving Social Security… at a time when the most anti-union administration in recent history is trying to undermine it. 

TRANSCRIPT:

ANNOUNCER: It’s You Earned This, the Social Security and Medicare podcast, brought to you by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. And now, your host, Walter Gottlieb. 

WALTER: Members of labor unions have some of the best retirement benefits around, and that’s because they have an equal seat at the table with management to negotiate good contracts, right? But even union members rely on Social Security. And the folks advocating for retired union workers are worried about Social Security, especially about the Trump administration’s handling of it. Rich Fiesta is the executive director at the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA). That’s a national grassroots advocacy group of retired union workers. 

And he’s here to tell us he’s hearing from rank-and-file retirees across the country during this dicey time for Social Security. 

Hello, Rich. Great to see you. 

RICH: Thanks, Walter. And great to be here with you at the National Committee. 

WALTER: We usually see each other at events on the Hill or around town, but we appreciate you coming into the studio. 

RICH: Glad to do it. We are lockstep on a lot of important issues for seniors. 

WALTER: Yes, we are, which is really important at this particular time to be united against the forces that may want to undermine our programs. 

So, tell us a little bit more about ARA. What is it and what do you do there? 

RICH: Great. The Alliance for Retired Americans was founded in 2001 by the AFL-CIO Executive Council. So next year we’re going to have our 25th anniversary. 

WALTER: Oh, mazel tov!

RICH: Thank you. And, we are designed and created to be a grassroots advocacy organization for seniors, seniors who were a labor union member, union retiree during their working lives, as well as—like the National Committee—anybody else who just wants to come and join us. We have about 4.4 million members. 

WALTER: So you are doing some similar things to us, right? You’re doing political action. You’re doing grassroots advocacy. Am I right about that? 

RICH: Yes. Yeah. Grassroots advocacy, obviously, for the major federal programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. And then our state chapters do a lot of work in their state capitols because, as you know, a lot of senior programs are joint state-federal, like Meals on Wheels or transportation programs. 

WALTER: Or Medicaid itself. 

RICH: Or Medicaid, yeah, especially. And we also, like you, get involved with political action, you know, endorse candidates, and hopefully, our endorsed candidates all win. 

WALTER: And we’re going to be very busy in 2026, aren’t we? And we’re already meeting with candidates, both of our organizations, right? You were just mentioning that before the show. 

So, union members tend to receive better retirement benefits, pensions, things that a lot of workers in non-union shops don’t get anymore, if ever. So why is Social Security still so important to retired union members? 

RICH: Well, as we know, the old three-legged stool of retirement was Social Security, a pension, and whatever personal savings you had. Well, Social Security is still there. In 1980, almost half the workforce, public and private, had access to a pension. Now, that’s down into the mid-teens. So Social Security is even more important for retirement for this generation as well. 

WALTER: And the union members, even though they might have a better retirement package, still need it? Still rely on it for monthly expenses and income? 

RICH: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, we did a poll of all seniors and asked them: How important is your Social Security? Is it important to meet your monthly budget, or it’s nice to have? 

80% say, “I need it to make my monthly budget. “And, not a lot of union seniors, percentage-wise, have a pension today in retirement that they did a generation ago. We’ve all seen the rise of the 401k, which has never met its promise.

WALTER: Right.

RICH: So, a monthly pension benefit is not as prevalent as it once was in the economy. 

WALTER: So what you’re saying is there’s been a retrenchment in pensions and replacement with 401k, even among union members? 

RICH: Yes, a lot of employers have gone to that. A pension becomes very important in negotiation, in contract negotiation. And almost inevitably, employers want to discard a pension system and go into a 401k. And we’ve had major strikes around the country on very large corporations on that very issue in the last several years. 

WALTER: Well, it’s worth fighting for. 

RICH: Exactly. 

WALTER: This is not the most union-friendly administration, is it? 

RICH: No. They fired—we think illegally—the chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. They’ve put people into the U.S. Labor Department, which is supposed to protect workers that are not labor-friendly, meaning worker-friendly, whether or not you belong to a union. 

For example, we also see it in the public sector as well, where they’re just union-busting federal employees, you know, left and right at all types of agencies as well. So, this is not a labor-friendly or union-friendly administration. It’s far worse than the first Trump administration. 

WALTER: Yes, in many ways. And yet, are you optimistic about the future of the union movement and what the union movement is or can achieve to stage a comeback, also to resist the union-busting administration?

RICH: Yes, public polling over the last number of years shows that if workers could join a union, a majority of them would. And, we’re especially seeing younger workers, people 20 to 40 now, really are pro-union… “If I could join a union, I would.”

We’re seeing big things like larger corporations, some of these new technologies, being organized. But we’re also seeing, you know, the service industry… Starbucks, for example, locales are being organized with a very, very resistant corporation on the other side. 

We are seeing it at the large places like Amazon, too. We are seeing it at a lot of the new media places. Kids who work in gaming, and online… a lot there, too. There’s been some union organization there as well. 

WALTER: That’s interesting. I did not know that. So we are right now, in the midst of the government shutdown. This podcast may be repeated at some point next year, in which case that may no longer be true. But for now, what are you seeing in terms of how the shutdown might be impacting customer service at Social Security Administration for retirees? 

RICH: We’re seeing it already. The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced last week that they may not be able to process earnings reports when people need to go get their earnings made for a job or some other financial reason. 

For example, we already had that DOGE team in there that really cut the workforce — before the shutdown. You know, 7000 plus workers, over 10 percent of the workforce, at a time when we have more people turning 65 or retirement age who need Social Security and need an agency that’s there to service them. 

WALTER: Do you hear anything from your members about having trouble contacting Social Security Administration, accessing their benefits, all these obstacles they’ve thrown up in terms of validating, verifying identity? You hear from your members about that? 

RICH: Yes, unfortunately, a lot of it. It used to be as recently a year ago, if you needed a new Social Security card, you would go to your local Social Security office, prove who you were, take the information and you get the new card within 10 days. Now, to do something simple like that, they’re not taking walk-ins anymore. So even if you go, they’ll say, go online or we can give you an appointment in two months, three months for something simple like a card. 

So, when you talk about more complex things like death or a disability claim, the backlog is just growing and growing and growing. 

WALTER: It’s pretty crazy. You mentioned the changes that Trump and DOGE made. They came in in January, started messing with SSA operations and slashing stuff right away. They were abetted by Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner, who was then replaced by Trump’s permanent commissioner, Frank Bisognano, who came out of the financial tech sector. It seems to me like he has been running SSA as if it were a tech company, the kind that’s intended to be sold to venture capitalists and gutted. Is that a fair assessment of what’s going on? 

RICH: Well, between him and the Secretary of the Treasury, Bessent, their public pronouncements in the last few weeks on Social Security seem to be that way. That, clearly, is a service agency. This is an agency that we all pay for, for our benefits and the workers who work there. This all comes out of the Social Security trust fund from our first check. 

Everyone who works there, you are paying for. It’s not the rest of any tax dollars from your Social Security withdrawals and withholdings. So what we have: We have office closings. We have delays. They just announced no more paper checks, and there are nearly half a million people for whatever reason that need paper checks — they may not have a house permanently to live in. They may not have a bank account, people who really need it, and they have no alternative. 

So, these are kind of the signs of people who want to not build up, but tear down an agency. And then, as you know, there have been forces in this country for decades that want to privatize Social Security… and here comes Wall Street. 

WALTER: Do you think that that is the agenda of Trump and Doge and Bisognano? 

RICH: Well, from their actions, it’s hard not to say that it is. Clearly, our former co-president, Elon Musk, called Social Security “the greatest Ponzi scheme of all time,” in January and February when he was over there, for example. 

That’s a lot of money—that is our money—that is being invested wisely in bonds, and has never missed a benefit check in 90 years. And of course, if you’re in Wall Street and those crowds, you want to get your hands on that money… on a very large surplus right now. 

WALTER: 2.7 trillion dollars in the trust fund. Yes, I bet their mouths are watering. The whole DOGE, Trump, Bisignano interference at Social Security administration is done under the phony cover of a hunt for “massive,” I’m putting air quotes around that, fraud and abuse in Social Security, of which, of course, statistically, there is actually very little. Our favorite that we keep hearing is that “illegals,” quote unquote, are collecting Social Security or that Biden and the Democrats were “giving illegals,”quote unquote, Social Security., And Trump is fixing that. Do you find that too many people are buying into that argument about fraud and undocumented workers?

RICH: No question, and that’s why organizations like both of ours, the National Committee and Alliance for Retired Americans, have to be front and center. We must push back at it. Because, as you know, it is illegal and has always been illegal for undocumented immigrants to get Social Security benefits, even though they may have paid into them during their working lives. 

WALTER: And there are no 150-year-olds or 300-year-olds collecting Social Security. And if there are, I’d like to meet them, because they belong in Ripley’s Believe it or Not. How are we feeling, Rich, about Frank Bisignano being named as CEO of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) at the same time he’s serving as SSA Commissioner? 

RICH: I mean, every American who pays into Social Security or draws it ought to be outraged by that. Because, you know, two Fridays ago, the Secretary of the Treasury said,: Hey, Bisignano now is going to be the CEO, a made-up title, of the IRS. Another agency that needs a full-time commissioner, that doesn’t have it right now either. So, he can’t do two jobs, and the job he currently has and is getting paid for is coming out of the Social Security Trust Fund. So moonlighting ain’t gonna work here. 

WALTER: There are some theories on our side of the aisle that one reason the Trump administration wanted to position Bisignano this way is so that he would have even more access to Americans’ personal data. Do you think that theory might hold some water, and are you and your members concerned about the mishandling of our personal data that Bisignano and Trump and SSA have already done? 

RICH: Yes. Well, we’ve seen that already this year. I mean, we at the Alliance and two unions early on went into federal court up in Baltimore because Social Security is based outside of Baltimore, in their headquarters, and had a hearing to keep DOGE out of all the personal data. 

We had a wonderful judge, well-regarded, she wrote a 150-page opinion, giving an injunction that DOGE cannot get the data, because for 90 years, no one person, including the commissioner, has ever had the ability to look at all the data. 

WALTER: Right. 

RICH: It’s very segmented. The Fourth Circuit, down in Richmond, Virginia, upheld it, and then comes the Supreme Court in this shadow emergency docket, and on June 6, they uploaded all the data of 345 million people into the cloud with not the basic security keys that you normally have on very personal data. 

WALTER: Yes. 

RICH: So we’re worried about that. 

WALTER: So thank you, John Roberts, and the right-wingers on the Supreme Court for letting Bisignano, DOGE, and Trump play with your personal data however they want. 

This segues nicely into the final question that I have for you. ARA is in the process of launching an initiative on seniors and potential scams from AI. Did I get that right? And tell us more about that?

RICH: Yes. The biggest thing now is AI where they can take your voice, manipulate it around, take a video, and put you in it as if you are there. And we’re seeing more and more scams, obviously financial, for example. We see them now, too, in the Bitcoin area. That’s been in the news lately as well. And we need to educate people, all Americans, but seniors in particular, on what to watch out for on AI in particular. So we’re just in the early phases, but it’s important for everybody, not just seniors. 

WALTER: I’m intrigued by this. You say that they can use AI to manipulate you to seem as if you were there. How does that scam work exactly? 

RICH: Well, for example, they may have your voice from a podcast or Zoom call or something like that. They can take it and then mix it around and manipulate it so they can make entire sentences. 

A very common one is the grandchild or a son, “hi, I’m lost, I’ve been captured, I’ve been kidnapped. Please send money to this bank account.” That then disappears after you send the money. Just one example. And there’s sadly more of that than you would think. 

WALTER: That is sad, and I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m glad that you are launching an initiative to try to fight that. That’s good. And raise awareness. Boy, it’s hard for seniors to keep up with all the scams. Now they’ve got to keep up with AI-fueled scams. My goodness. 

Well, Rich, thank you for your time. We could probably keep talking for a long time about all of this, about which we passionately care, but keep up the great work at Alliance for Retired Americans!

RICH: Yes. Thank you, Walter, and great being with you. And it’s a great pleasure working with you and the National Committee. 

WALTER: Back at you. Thank you. 

RICH: You bet. 

WALTER: And if you’d like to learn more about what Rich’s organization, the ARA, does, visit their website at retiredamericans.org. That’s easy to remember. And speaking of websites, check out the new website for this podcast at youearnedthis.org, where you can find all the episodes and sign up for our free newsletter. Our engineer is the sublime Shahab Shokouhi. Our editor is Super Steve Lack. I’m Wordy Walter saying: “You earned this!”