I'm 51 and now have 31 combined/reciprocal years in.
Two years ago I would have been gone by the old plan, if the two bstrds (company and union)would have been honest and competent at that time.
I traded registered letters with UPS and the Teamsters back and forth starting in June of 2001.
They both dithered returning me kinda, sorta, if, but, however letters averaging a month or so in between each until it was too late.
I received the final confirmation from both sides that I was eligible to retire with thirty years within a week of each other in January, a couple of months too late after CS notified us of the changes.
It is my belief any switch to a personal account situation would mean a collapse of the fund that holds what I have already earned in the last 28 full-time years and perhaps a welch on the part-time pension credit as well.
No thanks, I am not ready to let UPS and the Teamsters off the hook so quickly.
I have been in the 401k at full contribution levels since it's inception, lobbied for it for over a decade before we had it.
Watched the last decade how the magic of compounding doesn't work very good with a capital base that can shrink even while adding contributions to it so I am less than impressed by any talk of how private accounts will save us all by you or by bush regarding SS.
We already have private accounts, the already mentioned 401k, IRAs, etc.
Companies will not add a private account on top of a 401k.
They eliminate pension plans by converting to 401ks with paltry company contributions.
That trend has been all the rage with the corporations in the last decade.
Ask anyone who has been involved how happy they ain't about it.
That would be the way UPS would go if allowed as well.
Of course, if that is allowed it means they have legally been relieved of their financial obligations to the pension fund which means they legistlated their way into a United Airlines solution while staying majorly profitable.
That's great for them, but means we lose over two/thirds of our pension earnings and are put in a government fund whose future is unsure for the paltry remaining one/third with no medical insurance.
Your referral of having to work till 62 is a bit of a pipe dream.
That won't be an option as things are heading.
We are quickly going back to the "work till you die or are put down in an old folks home (and I don't mean one of those nice nursing homes as they currently are, but back to what people use to fear in the old days)
It actually will be far worse for most now as families use to band together out of necessity to care personally for their own failing relatives, but we have gone far past the me generation and the practical considerations will lean more toward euthanasia for our own good I am sure.
You can consider our medical essentially gone when we retire (and UPS will be working on the part where we are still employed next contract)if the medical cost trends continue.
This year it's what, 1220 a couple per month if you were qualified for it?
Who can afford that even on the 3000 a month former pension?
And it is and will continue to rise at the rate medical costs are rising which is far faster than the inflation rate.
Last I heard it was something like 17% annually.
At that rate by the time you reach 62 you will owe the plan money over and above your pension earnings ,even that extra accrued by working forty some years to age 62.
As far as working beyond UPS, yep, but that won't have anything to do with the current pension or a separate account as both would stop at the point you leave UPS just like your ability to contribute to the 401k will.
The primary difference we have here is you are looking at a longer term theory and I am talking about short term reality and how it affects me.
I want to leave UPS with what I have earned now, not "oh well, there goes what I earned in the last three decades luckily I can work here another couple of decades to earn some money."
Perhaps UPS and the consortium can salvage all, most or a significant some of what they have promised us over the decades (I can hope).
Or perhaps we will just get screwed and trampled under like the individual usually does when corporations and governments deal.
You can think the money contributed to the pension "is yours", but don't expect UPS to give any significant amount of it to you if they are allowed to run away from the pension.
So what I am really saying is I am just not ready to make it easy for them by accepting "oh well, that didn't work, lets just give up and try something else." and that is what I believe pushing separate accounts instead of the pension amounts to because we already have separate accounts (401k, etc) and UPS would use that to minimize what we would get out of the conversion.
