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Business Agent Presents Pension Issues
BA’s Presentation Focuses on Pensions for GE Contract ‘11
Business Agent Ric Casilli made the featured presentation for the February Membership Meeting on pension issues in the upcoming GE contract negotiations. Having just returned from a meeting of the IUE-CWA National Negotiating Committee, Ric was able to describe the Union’s goals in this important area.
The career annuity formula, which is the primary way members of Local 201 build their Regular Pensions through career earnings, has not been significantly improved in years. The Union will be pushing for increases in the percentage of earnings earmarked for pensions both before and after the “breakpoint” while not raising the “breakpoint”. Improvements here do not benefit people on the verge of retirement, but they are important for those who still have a number of working years left in the plant.
The Pension Update, which was controversially dropped in 1997 and then restored in 2000 and since, after a long campaign by Local 201 and former Board Member Fred Merchant, allows for your pension to be dramatically improved if you have significantly raised your earnings after years of lower earnings. Casilli indicated the Negotiating Committee hopes to not only retain, but also improve the Update by increasing the percentages used, eliminating the need for “consecutive” years, and lowering the required years of PQS.
There will also be an effort to improve the Guaranteed Pension Tables under which employees with lower earnings retire. There will be an effort to improve the multipliers and also eliminate the “consecutive” requirement for your highest years.
The Negotiating Committee will also seek improvements to the Pension Supplements, survivorship and disability retirement reductions, and some income protection for both future and past retirees.
“Increases in the Pension Update, Guaranteed Tables and Supplements impact a member’s pension immediately,” stated Casilli.
While the Company hasn’t clearly announced plans to exclude new hires from the defined benefit pension plan, they have done just that to their new hire management and exempt employees. The Negotiating Committee is not only on guard against any effort in that direction, but will be looking to reestablish some of the new hire benefits the Company took away in the 2007 contract.
Casilli was adamant that none of these goals will be achievable without the support of the rank and file membership as well as the unity of the Negotiating Committee and the Coordinated Bargaining Committee. Be sure to show your support:
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