If you want to collect before age 65 there is a 6 percent deduction for ever year prior, so you have 7 years in and vested after 5 you will get 7/30 percent of a standard 30 year retirement in whatever plan you were in at the time you left it. To keep it simple let us say you were a plan that paid 1,000 at full retirement, you would be eligible for 70 dollars at age 65. It gets better if you decide to collect those benefits at 55, that amount of 70 dollars gets reduced by 60 percent to a grand total of roughly 30 dollars a month. Like people are saying by the time that you will able to collect it that might buy in a happy meal at McDonalds. It would not even be worth the time to apply for them.
For those who have time in with the Part Time Pension Plan or the IBT/UPS Pension fund that formula applies to all of us, do the math. If you are lucky to reach that 25 year and age 57 service pension under the IBT/UPS plan of 2,000 you may count your blessings. The system is designed to physically and mentality prevent future retirees from collecting from those funds, the attrition rate has to be off the charts for those strong enough to survive this work environment for over 25 years.
You have to work in a pension plan for 5 years to be vested, if you leave you will get a lump sum which will be peanuts. With the way our current part time workforce leaves before 5 years, the company is saving a ton of money. If you are in a Defined Pension Plan like the part timers in my region they are not paying a weekly monetary amount into your pension even if you are vested over 5, under 5 the company is not required to give you nothing except for the meager lump sum just to get you off their books. Any defined pension plan is paid annually at the end of the year to cover just the promised benefits in the SPD, how article 34 master applies to any member under a defined pension fund has not been explained to me after many inquires.
That is why when I saw the 5 dollar per service year improvement with the part timers under this contract I laughed out loud and just knew where the rest of this contract was heading.