Watch AFSCME Director of Research Kerry Korpi stand up to attacks on public employees and our pensions during an appearance on CNBC. At issue: should states cut public pensions to balance ballooning budgets?

Despite being outnumbered 3 against 1, Korpi didn’t let a single myth or untruth — and there were plenty of them — go unchecked.

“Our members have taken furloughs in a number of states, they’ve taken layoffs, wage freezes and cuts in pensions. When we’re talking about public employee pensions, let’s talk about facts. The average member of AFSCME makes a pension of about $20,000. That’s after a career of service contributing anywhere from 4% to 8% of their salary, year in and year out. A number of those folks don’t get Social Security, so that pension is all they’ve got in retirement.”

Watch the full segment:

Whenever the economy is in dire straits, pundits and demagogues start looking for scapegoats. An all-time favorite is the myth of public employees and their allegedly fat – yet underfunded – pensions. The latest wrongheaded piece to promote this story is a USA Today op-ed printed on May 3, 2010 claiming that:

“Many states have lavish programs that allow workers to retire in their 50s with ample pensions — and health insurance to cover them until Medicare kicks in.”

But, as AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee points out in a response published in the same paper:

“The typical public employee represented by AFSCME earns, on average, about $18,500 a year in retirement after a career of public service. For some, this is their only source of retirement income because they do not qualify for Social Security benefits.”

Are these the lavish programs critics are talking about?

USA Today goes on to say that “some states have simply failed to put away adequate funds to cover” these programs’ benefits. While that may be true, how is it the fault of public employees that politicians have ignored pension contributions, or that – thanks to Wall Street’s recklessness – pension funds got smacked around in the last few years?

Moreover, are these problems unsolvable? Not if you look at the facts. As Pres. McEntee states:

“[O]ur public pension plans are designed for long-term stability, and virtually all of them have sufficient resources to weather this financial storm. More to the point, our pension funds can and will be rebuilt as our economy improves.”

This is why proposals such as converting public pension plans to 401(k)-type programs – a position advanced by the USA Today and many right-wing pundits – are so harebrained. Why would we want to put our hard-earned retirement funds in the hands of the same Wall Street investors that gambled away trillions of dollars and generated the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?

It is time to debunk these absurd claims and expose them for what they are: yet another attempt at undermining the hard work of public employees and the vital services they provide.

For more information, check out the Three Myths About State and Local Government Pension Plans and other interesting articles about public employee retirement benefits at afscme.org/pensions.

Across the country this holiday season, Main Street is being starved while Ebenezer Scrooge and his Wall Street friends are feasting.

Just a year after our economy plunged to terrifying depths, the financial tycoons who caused the crash are reaping enormous wealth as a result. They are receiving extraordinary bonuses as 10.2% of Americans are unemployed, states are being forced to cut critical services and 8.1 million homes are at high risk of foreclosure.

David Weidner at MarketWatch just released a devastating list of facts and figures contrasting those who are starving with those who are feasting this season. Here are a few lines (check out the whole thing):

• Wall Street bonus pool estimate for 2009: $140 billion
• Combined budget deficit estimate for 50 states in 2010: $142 billion (Read this blog post on Wall Street bonuses.)
• Average bonus at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS): $550,000
• U.S. median income: $50,740
• Total bailout funds committed by the U.S. government and Federal Reserve to Wall Street and auto industry: $1.1 trillion
• Cash committed to helping homeowners refinance mortgages under the Making Home Affordable act: $50 billion
• Number of mortgages that are eligible to be modified by Bank of America: 990,628
• Total mortgages eligible for modifications actually modified by B. of A. through Nov. 10: 136,994
• Number of bank lobbyists in Washington: 2,370
• Amount spent by financial industry lobbyists this year through Oct. 26: $334 million

At this critical time in our nation’s economy it is unacceptable for Wall Street to grow richer because of a problem they caused and we all sacrificed to fix. We know exactly who deserves to get coal in their stockings this Christmas.

Yesterday we wrote about a critical vote in the House of Representatives Financial Services Committee which pitted regular people and our pensions against the Chamber of Commerce and The Business Roundtable. AFSCME has been playing a leadership role in that effort, and thanks to all our hard work we won the vote this morning 39-30.

This is a big step forward in ensuring accountability for corporate directors through creating real democratic elections. The next step in the process is to have proxy access included in the Senate Financial reform legislation.

The current economic meltdown has destroyed $11 trillion in family wealth, pushed unemployment above 10 percent and threatened millions with home foreclosure. Part of the solution is to hold corporate directors accountable for the risky decisions they make and the executive pay schemes they approve that promote greed.

Proxy access gives shareholders the power to replace these corporate directors, and this week the House Financial Services Committee will be voting on a proxy access amendment sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Rep. Gary C. Peters (D-MI). The Chamber of Commerce is aggressively mobilizing to defeat this amendment and protect corporate insiders.

Visit ShareOwners.org for more information and to take action to hold corporate directors accountable and help prevent another financial crisis.

CNBC’s “Street Signs” host Erin Burnett says the numbers take her breath away: mutual funds consistently vote in favor of management proposals that increase executive pay — 84% of the time in 2008 — and against shareholder efforts to bring compensation in line with performance. Those numbers are from a recent report from The Corporate Library and AFSCME exposing funds’ complicity in runaway CEO pay.

On Monday, Richard Ferlauto, AFSCME’s director of corporate governance and pension investment, appeared on “Street Signs” to discuss the worst “pay enablers” that just aren’t serving the best interests of most individual investors:

Learn more about this and other issues by checking out the AFSCME-supported shareholder online resources at ShareOwners.org.

CEO pay reform remains a key element of the federal government’s financial reform agenda. The Federal Reserve recently announced that the agency will police banks’ pay policies to ensure they do not encourage excessive risk taking. The House of Representatives has passed legislation to give investors a say on pay and the Senate is considering such a move.

At the same time some companies have volunteered to give their owners a voice on compensation. Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Tech Data are among the 26 companies that have voluntarily agreed to give their shareholders a vote on pay. And nearly 300 financial firms that received TARP funds have held say on pay votes this year.

Richard Ferlauto, director of corporate governance and pension investment at AFSCME, appeared on CNBC’s “Street Signs” to discuss the need for long-term, performance-based and reasonable pay for CEOs:

Add your voice for pay reform by sending a message to your senators urging them to support a shareholder say on pay. Learn more about this and other issues by checking out the AFSCME-supported shareholder online resources at ShareOwners.org.

Stephen Schwartzman, CEO of financial firm Blackstone made a sweet $702 million in 2008. Never mind that Blackstone stock has plummeted 40 percent over the last two years. On the slightly more modest side of corporate excess, Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries took home $72 million in 2008, even though his company’s stock sank 55 percent in the last two years.

This, as national unemployment skyrockets toward 10 percent and wages and salaries for the rest of us fell 4.7 percent in the 12 months through June – the biggest drop since records began in 1960.

What will it take for the greed-meisters of Wall Street to realize that their shenanigans can’t continue? Is it that difficult to see how the very same people whose selfishness helped crash our economy are trying to pick it clean once again?

This is why AFSCME is leading the fight to re-regulate the financial industry and reign in the excessive paychecks that unaccountable corporate boards of directors routinely hand out to many of America’s CEOs. Their rapacious behavior not only threatens the interest of shareholders but the security of working families who have their savings invested in the market.

We obtained an enormous victory a few weeks ago when the U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation granting shareholders greater say over executive pay. But this is only the first step. Greed and corporate scandals will continue putting our pension plans in jeopardy until we win the fight to restrain undeserved CEO pay and make corporate boards more democratic.

This column by AFSCME President Gerald McEntee originally appeared in the USA Today opinion section.

Public pensions offer good value for taxpayers. In addition to providing modest but secure retirements for public employees — emergency responders, firefighters, health care workers, teachers, police officers and more — defined-benefit pension plans help provide vital public services and stimulate the economy.

The average annual benefit for a public worker, who has spent a career working for our communities at modest salary, is about $20,000. On average, taxpayers fund only 25% of the pension benefit; employee contributions and investments make up the rest.

While a handful of public pension plans are experiencing funding shortfalls, most are working well. Employers should be required to make regular contributions. That would solve the problem of shortfalls and protect a system that works for employers, employees and taxpayers.

Some proposals would only make matters worse. States that have experimented with private accounts, for example, saw lower investment returns — nearly a 50% reduction. Florida, Nebraska, North Dakota and West Virginia all tried private accounts. They left taxpayers footing the bill. When private retirement investment plans fail, they leave retirees more reliant on governmental financial assistance. That costs taxpayers more in the long run and hurts our communities.

Public pensions create almost $360 billion in economic activity and 2.5 million jobs. Shifting to a private system would have a dramatic and detrimental impact on local economies because businesses depend upon the stimulus of investment income from public pension systems. In California, switching to a system of private accounts could cost citizens $7.6 billion. Experimenting with a system of private accounts could put vital public services at risk and cost taxpayers significantly more for at least 10 to 15 years.

All Americans should have retirement benefits that they can count on, not the gamble of privatized 401(k)s run by the same Wall Street bankers who drove our economy into the ditch. Pensions are proven and critical tools to provide public services, stimulate the economy, secure retirement for public employees, and provide the best value for taxpayer dollars. Pensions work, so let’s preserve them and create retirement security for everyone who works hard for a living.

Gerald W. McEntee is president of the 1.6 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Did you know that Citigroup CEO Vikram S. Pandit raked in a sweet $38 million in total compensation last year while running his company to the ground? Let’s not forget that Citigroup has already received $45 billion in federal bailout funds. It isn’t a coincidence that AFSCME has made repeated calls for more accountability at the company.

Or what about FedEx Corp. CEO Frederick Smith, who earned more than $10 million in total compensation in 2008? Smith, by the way, is an active opponent of unionization for his employees. While he gets a more than generous salary, FedEx Ground classifies its drivers as independent contractors so it doesn’t have to provide them with basic benefits such as health care coverage.

Despite the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, companies continue to reward CEOs for poor performance. Haven’t these people learned their lesson? See for yourself at the AFL-CIO’s 2009 Executive PayWatch website which documents these and other outrageous examples of CEO behavior.

And while you’re at it, make sure to visit the special section on companies that lobby against their workers’ right to form a union. Also, click on the link on pay practices at other companies that have received taxpayer assistance.

You’re bound to be (unpleasantly) surprised, but this is also why AFSCME has taken the lead in the fight against corporate greed and protecting workers’ pensions. Learn more about AFSCME’s shareholder activism here.