Not one valid reason to stay with the Teamsters

[Bill]

Nothing makes them better. Getting rid of the Teamsters, for the likes of the APWA, is like firing an NFL head coach and replacing him with a highschool music teacher. I feel for these central state people (the main warsong chanters for this movement) who are essentially being robbed by the Teamsters, but they should of had a financial plan B in place. After working for UPS for so many years, you'd think you would get used to having to do everything yourself for it to get done correctly.

If the Teamsters and the APWA were equal, then I would say to stick with the Teamsters. However, this is not the case. The Teamsters are giving us 40% of the money that we are entitled to, with the rest going to other companies and for their own personal use. The APWA, which will only represent UPS people will have access to 100% of UPS money. Common sense will dictate that 100% is better than 40%. If we were to receive all the UPS pension money, our pension would be more than double what it is now. What don't you understand about that? Allow me to go a step further. In a court case presented to the UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT No. 91-1542 Ronald W. Caterino, ET AL., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v J. Leo Barry, ET AL defendants, Appellees, dated Nov, 12, 1993, a decision was made concerning the Teamsters multi-pension fund. To summarize this 26 page decision, two main points are of interest. The court agreed with the Teamsters that since the pension fund was multi-employer fund, the contributions by UPS was spread among all participants in the fund. In a single-employer plan, the UPS employees would not have to share with others. As of 1986, UPS contribution could buy pensions of $2600 per month in a single pension fund or just $900 per month in the multi-pension fund. Secondly, the court decided that employees can automatically entitle themselves to a share of fund assets should the matter become so critically important to them that they take the drastic step of changing collective bargaining representatives (leaving the Teamsters).
What the court is saying is that as long as we are stuck with a multi-pension plan (Teamsters), we are receiving a portion of what we should be getting. If we change unions and go to a single employee pension fund, then we would be receiving the full amount. We can do this, but we need to replace the Teamsters with the APWA. For those of you who believe the Teamsters propaganda that we will be without a union for a year if we vote them out, that is not true. Call the National Labor Relations Board. I did. If you vote a union out, you have to wait a year before voting in another union, but if you vote to replace a union with another union, the new union will take over immediately.

 

[Bill]

engineer79....just a thought, don't compare your health benefits to what they used to be.....compare your present health benefits to other company's present health benefits. Everybody (all companies) are paying more and getting less.

There is no reason why we should not have the benefits that we used to have. If UPS was struggling financially, then I can understand your logic. However, this is not the case. The problem is not UPS, but the Teamsters giving away our money to other companies. Please read my prior post concerning the lawsuit filed in the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT.

 

[Bill]

Exactly, I stated this in the other thread, but engineer79 convienantly ignores it.

I have already given you many reasons why the APWA is the logical choice over the Teamsters. You want to know what makes the APWA better than the Teamsters. The Teamsters are a sinking ship with no way out. You said that the APWA has no experience. The Teamsters allegedly do, and look what they did. The "best contract ever". What a joke. Cuts in the health and medical benefits, cuts in the pension, lower wages after adjusting for inflation (check the consumer price index under U.S. government), and higher union dues. Did the UPS pilots have any experience when they were smart enough to drop out of the Teamsters and start their own union (IPA)? No, they didn't, but look at them now. A big increase in salary and a bigger pension. The APWA is going to do the same as the pilots. You must be a representative of the Teamsters, worried about losing your do-nothing-for-the-UPS-employee job. If you are not, and maybe you are a driver for UPS, then logically, you are a maroon, because only a maroon would be happy accepting 40% of what you are entitled to.

 

[Bill]

"Ask them your questions. Or were you just saying that your union can not keep you safe."

How about you go to a Union hall meeting? Be a part of the solution instead of the problem for once.

Funny that you should mention going to a union hall meeting. I recently spoke to a Yellow Freight driver who attended a union hall meeting. I asked him what went on. He replied that the few members who went to the union hall meeting were upset about their pensions being cut. When they presented this question to the business agent, he ignored it and said that we will discuss it at the next meeting. Then I asked what was discussed and he replied that nothing was talked about. The BA has nothing to offer its members, so they avoid the questions, knowing that these same drivers will not attend the next meeting because nothing is really discussed. We are not part of the problem, the Teamsters are the problem. They control the pension money, use it like it's their money, and make us feel that we work for them, and not the other way around.

 

[Bill]

The only solution I see is to fix the problems the Teamsters are having. You'll NEVER get the Teamsters replaced. There are too many of us with too much time vested with the Teamsters. We'll never go with an untried and untested group who have never represented anyone!!


PS. "Reamsters" was cute the first time you said it. Now it just sounds dumb.

Speaking of cute things, so is your eyeball. Maybe you should open it and see what is really going on with the Teamsters. Why doesn't the Teamsters open their books. It is supposed to be public record. What are they hiding?

 

[Bill]

Amen too that.....Also getting tired of these apwa supporters using the central state pension as their "only" excuse to get rid of the teamsters!!! You guy's need to think of more excuses than that. Maybe you need to put the effort your using to "convert" fellow teamsters over and try to figure out how you can help change the pension in the central states!!! GET A LIFE BOY"S!!!

Maybe I should tell the Teamsters to keep the pension money that I worked hard for. Would that solve the problem? Maybe I should work until I die!!! That would solve the financial disaster that is called Central States and the Teamsters.

 

[Bill]

the question here though would be would you be willing to consider a switch if APWA or some other union came up with a viable plan where you would not lose anything.

The APWA does have a viable plan, but you are too close-minded to listen to it.

 

[Bill]

Single employer plans have another issue. Rich companies won ante up.

Exxon Mobil (XOM, news, msgs), for example, has the second biggest pension-fund shortfall (Ford is first.) Exxon has an $11.5 billion hole in its worker retirement plan



High prices for crude oil, gasoline and natural gas helped Exxon Mobil Corp. to its highest-ever quarterly profit, $9.92 billion, up 75 percent from the third quarter last year, the company said yesterday.

A promise to the shareholder is more important than a promise to the employee.

You are overlooking one basic fact. In single pension plans, the company controls the pension. However, the APWA is trying to replace the Teamsters and control the pension themselves. In this case, UPS contributes, but does not control the pension fund.

 

[hoser]

let me get the straight, you guys are upset with the union, so your solution is to, create another one?

good luck with that one.... if you want to belong to a union, stay with the IBT as it is. ideally, you should not want to be apart of a union.

 

[wildgoose]

let me get the straight, you guys are upset with the union, so your solution is to, create another one?

good luck with that one.... if you want to belong to a union, stay with the IBT as it is. ideally, you should not want to be apart of a union.

Hoser if you can`t see the writing on the wall you need new glasses. Some people continue to
deny the obvious ! They manage themselves better than they manage us and we hired them !!!!!!!!!!! Time to take out the garbage. Look at local 82 another fine example of nepotism under its leadership. Taking care of family as in his and oversteping the seniority issue. It just keeps on going the same old crap !!!!!!!!! Its not going to change until we change the leadership (using that term very loosely too)

 

[wildgoose]

Hoser here is another valid reason to shag the bums !!!!

I know your going to say thats a single incident here but we have had many a single incident all over the place. Your stuborness is honorable to a union that is less than honorable !!!

 

[halfbarrel]

I will say this, Noone seems to be on the worker's side. The Teamster's and Central States are trying to keep their heads above water. The company more than likely will remain. I don't want the company to control the pension, however I think if they (UPS) control the pension, it will be around for us to draw upon

 

[tieguy]

Amen too that.....Also getting tired of these apwa supporters using the central state pension as their "only" excuse to get rid of the teamsters!!! You guy's need to think of more excuses than that. Maybe you need to put the effort your using to "convert" fellow teamsters over and try to figure out how you can help change the pension in the central states!!! GET A LIFE BOY"S!!!

Central states is the worst but there are others possibly as many as half of all multi-employer plans struggling to stay afloat. Then look at the threat rising healt care costs pose and you have reasons to stay informed be concerned.

 

[JonFrum]

. . . we offered a single employer plan that would have been co-administered therefore no company control. . . .

False. UPS offered a hypothetical (non-existant) plan that would be jointly trusteed by equal numbers of UPS executives and Teamsters officers, (which may be what you meant to say,) but the Plan Administrator would be a UPS appointee. Normally, trustees delegate the day-to-day administration of a plan to the Plan Administrator, so he has a lot of power, especially in a situation where the board of trustees can be expected to be deadlocked three-to-three on nearly every issue. The insistance of UPS to be in complete control of of day-to-day plan administration guaranteed the proposal would go nowhere.

. . . We saw huge potential liabilities with multi-employer plans. Actual - lot of truth through that answer. And it scares the crap out of us today. CS issues are the tip of the iceburg. A CS folding would mean the feds step in and expect us to dole out a lot more money to cover the plans liabilities. A CS folding could pull all of us down. . . .
. . . we are scared to death of the financial liabilities we would encur if one of those huge monster plans should fold. CS would be the worst because we are the big dog in that plan and we would pay through the nose if it went up.

False. As bad as Central States (and a few other funds') financial condition is, there is virtually no chance of it folding and pulling us all down, with UPS being stuck paying off its liabilities. That's just not how multi-employer pension plans work, or how the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation works. First, UPS is only responsible for its share of any unfunded liabilities, not the whole plan's liabilities. Second, unlike a single-employer plan, which goes under when its one-and-only contributing employer goes under, multi-employer plans, (the big ones anyway) are diversified and self-insured by having thousands of employers. The track record of single-employer funds failing is litterally 100 times worse than multi-employer plan failures. But some multi-employer plans are even safer than others because they are not just diversified by having many contributing employers throught an industry, but by further having employers diversified throught the entire economy. For Central states to go belly-up would almost require the entire economy to go belly-up. If that happened, say, as a result of multiple nuclear detonations by terrorists, your pension woes would be the least of you worries.

Visit the PBGC's very informative website and see in their own words how large multi-employer plans in trouble are handled. Typically they are not in danger of bankruptcy, (that's almost an imposibility), but rather have a temporary funding crisis that is cured by benefit cuts. In more extreem cases where a fund is actually unable to make a payment due, the PBGC LENDS the fund the money to make the payment. Over time, the problem is cured and the money paid back. The idea that either UPS (or the PBGC) will be dragged under by Central States is unfounded. Incidently, the Western Conference fund is the only other "huge monster plan" and it is now said to be 100% funded, so relax, loosen your tie, and visit the multi-employer pages of Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)

 

[JonFrum]

. . . I still have copies of the "last best final offer" the company put out in 97 and that [a Social Security Offset feature] is not in the offer. That was one of the rumors. . . .

Many single-employer pension plans have a Social Security Offset. That's a feature that reduces your pension benefit when Social Security starts sending you retirement checks. The reduction is the same amount as the Social Security benefit. Thus a pensioner receiving say, $3,000 per month, would have his pension check reduced by say, $1,500, or $2,000 or whatever, so that his combined benefit from both sources would total $3,000. (This should not be confused with a different plan feature in the UPS Retirement Plan that, according to Tieguy, involves Social Security, but does not involve receiving less pension benefits, just rearanging when they are received.)

Since a Social Security Offset is a likely feature of any proposed single-employer plan, the burden is on UPS to assure us that their proposed plan does not contain this unwanted feature. I heard the Teamsters tried to get UPS to renounce this feature but UPS would not. If anyone has proof to the contrary, please post it. The absence of any mention of a Social Security Offset one way or the other doesn't say much, since there was no actual plan in existance. We couldn't go look it up. UPS wanted us to end the strike, go back to work, and the entire plan provisions would then be negotiated later, with the Teamsters having no bargaining clout whatsoever. This requirement guaranteed that the proposal would go nowhere. It was also revealing that UPS's existing single-employer pension plans were not more attractive than they were, and that UPS was not proposing that we join their existing plan. Why create a new plan when you have a plan in place already? It made one suspect that the proposed plan for us was intended to be substandard. UPS should also have given a promise not to unexpectedly terminate the plan against the participant's will, like they did with the Thrift Plan. There were numerous other shortcomings in the proposed plan as outlined in the brochures we were given as well.

 

[Bill]

let me get the straight, you guys are upset with the union, so your solution is to, create another one?

good luck with that one.... if you want to belong to a union, stay with the IBT as it is. ideally, you should not want to be apart of a union.

All we want is a union that represents us fairly and gives us what we are entitled to. The Teamsters don't do either one of these things, and that is why we are trying to form another union that looks out for us.

 

[tieguy]

False. UPS offered a hypothetical (non-existant) plan that would be jointly trusteed by equal numbers of UPS executives and Teamsters officers, (which may be what you meant to say,) but the Plan Administrator would be a UPS appointee. Normally, trustees delegate the day-to-day administration of a plan to the Plan Administrator, so he has a lot of power, especially in a situation where the board of trustees can be expected to be deadlocked three-to-three on nearly every issue. The insistance of UPS to be in complete control of of day-to-day plan administration guaranteed the proposal would go nowhere.

A popular rumor a few die hard carey supporters continue trying to spread.
False. As bad as Central States (and a few other funds') financial condition is, there is virtually no chance of it folding and pulling us all down, with UPS being stuck paying off its liabilities. That's just not how multi-employer pension plans work, or how the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation works. First, UPS is only responsible for its share of any unfunded liabilities, not the whole plan's liabilities. Second, unlike a single-employer plan, which goes under when its one-and-only contributing employer goes under, multi-employer plans, (the big ones anyway) are diversified and self-insured by having thousands of employers. The track record of single-employer funds failing is litterally 100 times worse than multi-employer plan failures. But some multi-employer plans are even safer than others because they are not just diversified by having many contributing employers throught an industry, but by further having employers diversified throught the entire economy. For Central states to go belly-up would almost require the entire economy to go belly-up. If that happened, say, as a result of multiple nuclear detonations by terrorists, your pension woes would be the least of you worries.

Visit the PBGC's very informative website and see in their own words how large multi-employer plans in trouble are handled. Typically they are not in danger of bankruptcy, (that's almost an imposibility), but rather have a temporary funding crisis that is cured by benefit cuts. In more extreem cases where a fund is actually unable to make a payment due, the PBGC LENDS the fund the money to make the payment. Over time, the problem is cured and the money paid back. The idea that either UPS (or the PBGC) will be dragged under by Central States is unfounded. Incidently, the Western Conference fund is the only other "huge monster plan" and it is now said to be 100% funded, so relax, loosen your tie, and visit the multi-employer pages of Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)

False . I stand by my original statements. Feel free to acquire a brown cafe id and I'll help educate you.

 

[Cezanne]

From my understanding the social security offset was elminated from the UPS Retirement Plan for management in "92". Tieguy can correct me on that one if I am wrong, but I do have a SPD for that plan on file. With limited knowledge to the legal details with the new pension reform act but from my understanding the funding ratio has to be at a certain level within the next seven years. Meaning that the companies in these multi-pension funds will have to pay more than what is typically negotiated to get them up to snuff. Still remember when this underfunding crisis came to light, Hoffa went to the companies in question and asked for increases to cover the shortages in funding. They basically told him to take a hike that they were not going to go beyond the negotiated contributions, will it could appear that somebody did an end around and will get their wishes afterall, with the help of a federal mandate.

That is going to leave the companies involved to cut into their remaining profits to make good on the promised benefits. It is out of their hands now, it is a matter of creative accounting to provide their obiligations to their long term employees. Just from reading some of the new pension reform act, the pentalities for failing to do so will hurt more than paying the bill.

Another consideration with the Central States funding, is that most of the participants in that plan where orginally vested in the UPS Pension Plan for part-timers. What that means legally with any default would be interesting.

 

[max350]

Well at least you have someone in your corner. The technical support groups have to go through the steps and HR is joke when dealing with management. The management teams so it seems can say whatever to a person a get away with it even if it is DISCRIMINATION.