Let’s Get It In Writing From the Fund

President Howie Redmond and the Local 804 Executive Board sent a letter to all Local 804 members promising that no matter what happens on Wall Street our pensions are secure.

They say that under a Letter of Understanding negotiated with UPS, the company is responsible for making extra contributions to our pension fund as needed to maintain our benefits at the current level for the life of the contract.

Since our Executive Board made this guarantee, the stock market has continued to nosedive. The Local 804 Pension Fund could lose $150 million in assets this year. Our pension fund would be more than $500 million short of being fully funded. Half a billion dollars.

With so much at stake, it’s time to get this Pension Guarantee in writing from our Pension Fund.

This shouldn’t be any problem if the guarantee is as secure as our Executive Board says it is. Howie Redmond, Tony Magrene and Bill Buhlert are all Pension Fund Trustees and they can make a motion to have the Fund issue the statement. The other Trustees at the Fund are named by UPS, with one trustee from IAM Local 447.

Guarantee or Crapshoot?

If UPS’s trustees block the Pension Fund from issuing a letter that verifies our Executive Board’s guarantee then we know we have a problem.

It would reveal that UPS is not necessarily going to put extra money in our pension fund and that we may be in for a fight.  If this issue goes to arbitration, that is no guarantee; it’s a crap shoot.

This is especially true when tens of millions of dollars are pending on a couple of vague sentence. (Click here to read the Letter of Understanding).

If the Letter of Understanding really provides for a historic Pension Guarantee, it’s strange that both the Executive Board and the company failed to mentioned it when the contract was being voted on—especially given how hard both sides were pushing members to vote for this unpopular contract.

Not a single other Teamster pension plan has an agreement with UPS that they will guarantee pension benefits at a certain level by hiking company contributions to the pension fund if needed. Some Teamster Health Funds have this kind of “Maintenance of Benefits” agreement with UPS (Local 804 does not). But no Pension Fund does.

With the stock market meltdown, every single one of us is concerned about what’s going to happen with our pensions. We’ve heard empty promises about our pension before.

This time, let’s get it in writing from the Pension Fund.

Click here to read the letter from our Executive Board.

Click here to read the Letter of Understanding.

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