Amazon's Jeff Bezos Takes Washinton Post's Advice: Rips Off Post's Workers — Retirement Benefits Snatched Away

Looks like Jeff Bezos has discovered some more employee benefits
he can take away. (cc photo: James Duncan Davidson)

By Jim Naureckas
The Washington Post (9/23/14) reported that the paper's new ownership would be slashing retirement benefits for employees:

The Washington Post announced large cuts in retirement benefits on Tuesday, declaring that it would eliminate future retirement medical benefits and freeze defined-benefit pensions for nonunion employees.

The company also said that in negotiations that started Tuesday, it will seek to impose the same conditions on employees covered by the union–one of the first indications of how the Post's new owner, Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos, will manage relations with the staff of the news organization.

The changes will hit hardest at employees hired before 2009 who could plan on receiving pension payments based on their income and years of service. Each of those employees could see scores–or hundreds –of thousands of dollars less over the course of a retirement.

Now, that's a rotten thing to do–taking away large sums of money that you promised people for their retirement after years of service. Where could Bezos have gotten the idea that it was OK to act that way?

Well, maybe he reads the paper he just bought.

The Washington Post has a long tradition–in its news reports and its editorials–of calling on politicians to treat public employees and their pensions the way that Bezos is treating the Post's. As Peter Hart (FAIR Blog, 9/12/14) wrote earlier this month:

The Washington Post (9/10/14) was unsurprisingly happy with the primary's result, noting that Raimondo faced down "ferocious opposition from labor" because she had dared to explain "the plain budgetary impossibility of maintaining pensions" as promised. To the Post, "her primary victory is an encouraging sign that many voters, including Democrats, have woken up to the peril posed by years of reckless promises by office-holders beholden to public-employee unions."

Anything that hurts labor unions, workers and moves Democrats to the right must be something to cheer about.

Now, I want to make it clear that I oppose sauce for the goose as well as sauce for the gander. But hopefully the Post staff will attend to this reminder that they and the ruling class do not share the same interests, though they often write as though they do. You may see yourself as part of Team Billionaire, but Jeff Bezos sees it differently.

Reprinted with permission from Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.