Protect Our Benefits
Protect Our Benefits, Inc.
Many people ask, “Just what is Protect Our Benefits, Inc. (POB), and what do its members stand for?” Years ago, our organization was formed by a group of motivated San Francisco retirees, widows/widowers, and disabled retired employees who were ready to fight against a movement that was threatening their pensions and benefits. Many of their goals were similar to those defined in our mission statement: “…to provide CCSF retirees educational information on issues affecting their retirement benefits, principally by acquiring knowledge and then educating its members, as well as public policy makers, on issues concerning both such as current and proposed or pending legislative, administrative or judicial actions that could impact earned benefits.”
We work with our fellow CCSF retirees and their widows/widowers to “…protect their earned healthcare and pension benefits from illegal, unlawful, and inequitable attacks, intrusions, and erosion as a result of legal, administrative, and judicial actions.” We also “…. promote, preserve, and protect the earned retirement rights and benefits of CCSF’s many and varied retired public employee members who are generally senior or older adults of the San Francisco retirement community.”
Today, we embrace the goals and standards of our first activists. Our pensions and benefits are constantly under attack. Unfortunately, politicians and individuals with personal financial and political agendas have tried to spin the truth about how our benefits originated, who contributes to their costs, and if their costs adversely affect the budgets of our City and County. We strive to share the truth with the public about how our pension system works, where our benefits come from (the voters of CCSF through the Charter), the fiscal stability of both our Retirement and Health Systems, and that a pension is really a deferred compensation for work performed. We fiercely advocate fiduciary responsibility among the SFERS Board, Directors, and Trustees.
We are watchdogs who attend public meetings to monitor and report back to our group of retirees what board members are discussing and how to deal with upcoming issues that can affect our benefits. We meet with CCSF Supervisors to explain our positions and attend Retirement and Health Board Meetings. Recently, we employed a labor attorney to fight for the rights of our retirees. We are still engaged in a legal battle with the CCSF, fighting to make our most senior retirees whole again.
POB is a nonprofit corporation. None of our members are paid or compensated in any way. We depend on the generous contributions of our retired supporters to fund our operating costs and legal battles. Any San Francisco retiree may attend our meetings. We welcome CCSF retirees to come and observe our meetings and join us to fight for fairness for all retirees.
POB is using social media and the web to get our message out to more than 40,000 retirees, widows, widowers of retirees, disabled retirees, and followers. We utilize our Facebook page and website to explain our positions, provide up-to-date information concerning retiree issues, collect donations, and share informational articles for public distribution. On Facebook, we engage people from all over the world who have questions about our goals and purposes. We explain how we deal with entities who are attacking our benefits. We post articles from POB directors and reports from our attorney regarding legal issues. We invite everyone to check out and follow our page!