Labor Candidates Lose PERA Bids (NM-Public employees retirement fund)

The Albuquerque Journal ^ | October 13, 2007 | Andrew Webb

[CedarDave]

All three candidates supported by a powerful public employee union have lost their bids for positions on the board that governs the Public Employee Retirement Association pension fund.

And a key union leader is none too happy about it.

Carter Bundy, AFSCME political and legislative director for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in New Mexico, on Friday blasted a PERA board lobbyist who was publicly critical of the union's high-dollar involvement before the election.

"I think what Fabian Chavez did was unethical and inappropriate," Bundy said.

Since 2004, when AFSCME spent a total of $52,000 on its endorsed candidates, current and would-be board members have complained that AFSCME support gave its candidates an unfair advantage. Other candidates have spent as little as a few hundred dollars for the nonpaid board positions.

In September, Chavez questioned whether the union wanted to further a "social" agenda in investment strategy. Chavez is a former state Senate majority leader, former PERA board member and longtime union supporter.

He said he feared the union backing would encourage AFSCME-backed board members to steer investments toward union-friendly companies or fund managers. Board members, he said then, "should contribute 100 percent of their thoughts, words and deeds toward the fiduciary responsibility of that fund and its managers."

[CedarDave]

Retired public employees are more concerned with their pensions than a union-controlled board directing investments to union-friendly companies or social-agenda funds that may be PC but not give a good return on investment. That's as it should be, union thinking otherwise.

[CedarDave]

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[greyfoxx39]

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[LegendHasIt]

Fabian Chavez is still around and doing ‘that voodoo that he do so well’??

Or is this a son of the same name carrying on with the ‘family business’ as usual?