Tim, I too have posted many times in the past about how these pension plans are going by the waste side one at a time. UPS bought out all their pensions to get the employees out of a failing system. IAM has made one or two cuts in the past (may not have been this IAM's pension) and I believe those were on the retirees. There is currently several pensions on the chopping blocks getting ready to get frozen or at least will be chopped in half and in some cases some retirees will see up to a 33% cut on payouts. All these are documented cases. With the millions upon millions of pension workers laid off, fired, or just leaving their work the pensions are slowly dying away from the lack of participants. After 9-11 the airline industry lost hundreds of thousands of pension workers that were no longer participating once they were laid off or riffed, not to mention the many, many other workers that were released after 9-11. I can't believe the IAM side is still trying to push this pension fund into the AA'ers side. I too would much rather see you guys freeze the existing and get a heftier match in the 401K and other retire accounts increased. Plus the pensions die if the person dies, whereas the 401K can very easily out live the participant and be passed onto family, not so with the pensions. For that alone should be enough. They will have to cut the pensions again in the future, that's a fact...
Well, nobody is talking about wanting to see our pension frozen. It is what it is. But it is just stupid, Big League stupid, to negotiate any company contribution increase into our IAMNPF instead of 401k. The strong rumor is that the health care benefits will be cut, but we will get that cost imputed into the IAMNPF as a cost netural sorta thing. That's like giving extra money straight to a drunk.
That said, the IAMNPF is falling fast. Actually, it has been falling as all of these multi employer plans are a complete disaster now economically. Our plan was in very bad shape before the 2009 economic downturn and had to make a big league plan cut in 2003 to wish away future liabilities. Obviously, with an aging participant group, it was only a band aid slash and had to be slashed monstrously in 2011. That also was only a band aid as the math doesn't lie. Today, it is worse off than the 2011 whack job.
Yet not one union leader will stand up and educate our members about this. In fact, my guess is that our union leaders will keep doing what Prez is, i.e., saying it's better than a 401k even though whatever the company giveth to the IAMNPF, the pension bosses will taketh at this point from us. And they will have to take again in another 5 or 6 years after they take this time. Every 6 years, the plan will need some serious cut in benefits. It simply can't sustain and is burning tens of millions each year. Unlike some other plans that took on the full force of the great recession, the IAM pension bosses took advantage (as well they should) of a new law to save it and amortized the loss over 10 years, i.e., 10% a year. Otherwise, it would have already been a goner like some of these other pensions. But it still has to make a Big League cut soon, and then again a few years later. It's inevitable. Prez is the sales agent, he isn't going to shoot straight on this. Plus, his grand lodge pension (second pension off of his AGC gig) is fully funded. Dude gets like 2 pensions and 401k so he wants to keep that gig. I'm not surprised that the Grand lodge pension [extra pension that pays out big league to Prez and other union bosses] is fully funded.
And very few members will engage this issue as they close their eyes and bury their head and hope this problem goes away. Let it be said by me, that any JCBA that switches total compensation benefits from our health care to the IAMNPF is wrong and evil since you might as well just hand over those benefits to the IAM pension bosses right now and have them burn them up. Because that's what is going to happen.
We need the company to contribute more to our retirement and that means that any increase in company contributions need to go into our 401k and not be burned up by the IAM Pension bosses. Wake up people, you aren't in Kansas.
