Pension Petition

Yesterday an e-mail was forwarded to me by a friend with an author by the name "Horse Tayles". The body of the text was a poorly researched piece on the Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Fund with an attached petition demanding that the IBT never look at this plan for the membership.

Initially I was wondering why it was unsigned, but after reading the whole thing along with the attached petition, I understood this was purely an act cowardice as I first assumed. Karl Rove would be proud of this guy using falsehoods with small bits of facts to deceive trusting fellow employees.

Let's break it down and get the facts out of the way first since there are few of those. Each member currently receives roughly four thousand dollars per annum per the pension replacement LOA so we can accept as described "Doing the rough math, that is about $20,000.00 per mechanic or $100 million for our class and craft over the five year vesting period."

Before the rest of the e-mail is debunked I think the motive should be addressed. Is this an altruistic ploy or something else? This quote from the petition sums it up for me, "This gives the appearance of complicating, to the point of restricting any other union from organizing." The author appears to be afraid that if the membership is allowed to vote on the plan it will pass, and that will severely limit his opportunity to change unions. While that is a motive, it certainly doesn't appear to be in the best interest of the majority.

OK now that we're done with the facts we'll move to some outright misrepresentations (lies). The first "This plan is severely underfunded and our money will be used to prop up those currently collecting." Here is the letter from the WCT Actuary certifying the "Green Status" of the fund.

Next, "This is a classic pyramid scheme. Those new to plan pay for those currently in the plan." Here is a definition of an actual pyramid scheme from Wikipedia, and here is a link from The Free Dictionary, legal section on multi-employer pension funds. Reading the two definitions it is clear multi-employer pension funds are not illegal pyramid schemes. Calling it a scheme is a deceptive ploy to fill the reader with unwarranted fear.

Further down, "The Teamster Pension funds are suffering losses and they need to recoup those losses by fast tracking United mechanic contributions from our 401k. These plans are continually subject to criminal influence even today." Please refer to the Actuary's letter above regarding funding levels. As to criminal complaints against the WCT I was unable to locate any on the Department of Labor Website or using a Yahoo! search. In addition these funds are governed by ERISA enacted originally in 1974 and designed to protect participants funds through various measures.

In addition, "This fast tracking is causing our contract negotiations to be put on the back burner as well." Being a member of the Negotiating Committee, as well as the Pension Committee I can attest that this is not true. Sub-committees are typical in negotiations and this is no different.

Then "Remember the organizing promise of 10 years for 5? Like all the other Teamster promises, this to was an outright lie to get your vote during organizing. Ask any Teamster rep if that promise will be acted upon and the response goes something like this: We said you COULD get the 10 for 5, not that you WOULD get it." Please follow the above link to the WCT and read the Contribution Account Benefit tab. About halfway down it addresses the Non-Contributory Service Benefit. This is as described during the campaign and the WCT people that addressed a Steering Committee session in February told us we would be eligible for this.

I'm getting tired of writing this and if you are this far I'm sure you are tired of reading it so I will address the last paragraph in its entirety. "The Teamster negotiating committee is comprised of members with little or no experience. They do not have our interests at heart. This is nothing more than a money grab. Instead of funding Teamster pension plans they need to take care of our pay, job security and benefits.They should be working to increase the amounts the Company contirbutes to the 401k plan." As I've stated before we have an Attorney at the table with us at all times, our Chief negotiator as well as our Co, and Alternate Chairs have many contracts under their belts. As far as the 401k the author must have done much better than me last year because I was certainly far in the red. I make the same money as all of you and if I don't have your best interests at heart, I must have an IQ well south of 70. I could go on but I'm sure you get the point.

That's all for now,

Bob