Has IBT/CS been a wise steward of our pension?

[pkgman688]

ok2bclever or sawman,

Have you talked to part-timers lately? Can you see them wanting to take a pay freeze? I cannot. Most part-timers are only looking short term. They are not looking out for you or me. Just look at how they see cash bonus at contract time. I feel that I just being realistic.

How many drivers do you know that are basically living paycheck to paycheck. The percantage in my center boggles my mind. Once again, look at how company sells contracts with $'s. Almost everybody looks at $'s added to hourly rate not the $'s that going to benefits. This mentality along with returns/management of funds has allowed this mess (yes, I agree that its a mess) to fester for so many years.

Coupling these two situations with ardent Teamster supporters = failure.

If anyone believes that I'm a big fan of CS than you are wrong. CS can screw us 688 even if you are not in a CS fund. In our local , all part-timers and full-timers in St. LOuis metro area are covered by a company health plan. Only full-timers in the out state area are covered by CS C6 health plan. To make the numbers simple, it works out to 1000 FT on company health and 500 on CS C6 health. But CS take any increase for FT benefits and applies it health costs - none for pension for the entire 1500 members. Thats right, it does not matter if only 1/3 of the members have CS health and incur costs for CS.

 

[ups79]

bclever:so lets see, you want to dump on your brother like he wants to dump on you?

 

[sawman]

UPS79,
It's not a matter of wanting to dump on anyone, or going too, or trying too, it's just a simple fact that if the pay freeze is voted on, the majority will rule.

 

[trickpony1]

Sawman,
When and how will this vote occur?

 

[ups79]

sawman:I don't believe I was talking to you. I quit discussing things with you because your only answer was "contact the web site". From this constant response from you I determined that you knew very little thus the desire to ignore you.

 

[ups79]

What some of you cannot realize is, that not all contracts are negotitated between the Natl and UPS. Every part of our contract, salary included, is negotitated between our LOCAL and the company.

 

[wily_old_vet]

my2cents-where can ge go to learn funding level of a particular plan other than the local?

 

[my2cents]

Wily,

Contact your fund to see if they provide actuarial valuation reports. Usually, these reports are constructed once every 2 years by an independent actuary. I realize in the case of Central States, one probably won't receive anything like this and instead will have to rely on Form 5500 filings from the DOL. Chances are if no actuarial report is available to participants, the fund should at least send you a copy of the latest Form 5500 filing.

Basically, the funding ratio is the pension assets divided by the termination benefits. One should be able to find these two figures in the Form 5500 filing's attached financial statements. To find assets, look for an entry that says something like "Net Assets Available for Benefits." On the liability side, look for something like "Actuarial Present Value of Accumulated Plan Benefits." Once these two figures are found, its a simple matter of division to get the ratio.

 

[my2cents]

To further illustrate the multi-employer plan problem, a couple more excerpts from Mr. McDevitt's Congressional testimony:

from page 50: "...from UPS's perspective, we track 21 plans, and less than half of them would meet the 75 percent level currently."

from page 57: "Now I might add, there's another plan out there, so it's not just to the Central States plan. We have a New England pension plan as well. And the fact of the matter is, the New England pension plan is in as bad as, if not worse, shape than the Central States plan. And we can throw around these percentage funding, what it is, what it isn't, whether it's including all vested benefits, whether it's taking into consideration the people who have termed in there, which means they've accrued some sort of a benefit but they have not begun to draw on it yet, when we look at that, that plan currently is right at 61 percent funded." 2001 funding figure. Emphasis mine.

(Message edited by my2cents on April 29, 2005)

 

[ok2bclever]

ups79, I don't believe you control who responds here no matter how rude you want to be and you have continually been exceedingly rude in this post to sawman although I don't know why.

You act threatened by him . . .

As far as dumping on my brother, etc. I wasn't gloating, not even sure if I support this action without a whole lot of more information and as I have repeatedly stated guarantees.

I was simply stating a fact.

If the issue came to a national vote and was as simple as it has been stated here that a two year wage freeze would save everyone who's pensions are in jeopardy which is the majority of UPS workers, then the results are predictable.

First though there is a lot of proving left to be done.

I find it ironic that a person from the local best known for breaking unity to cut a better individual contract deal with the company than the rest of us UPSers gets every contract is throwing "selfish" accusations.

 

[trickpony1]

I would appreciate it if Sawman would answer my question...when and how will this vote occur?

 

[ok2bclever]

My shift takes me through the majority of the preload's shift and while I have a part-time steward she prefers me to handle the duties as long as I am present, also my part-time reload steward calls me forwarding questions, so I talk to part-timers ever day and future pension and benefit issue questions come up with them a lot.

The days that they were college kids staying only for a few years is long gone.

Some are on the track to full-time, but many are not.

The majority of them work two jobs, support a family and need this job for the benefits.

They are concerned with what they will get long term for retirement.

They know if they go full-time now as it stands they are going into a shaky pension scenario.

They have also seen how UPS downgrades the part-timer's UPS based plans when the full-timer's Central States plan's benefits are lowered.

I would agree that the transient part-timers would be your best hope to increase a vote in the favor of you minority lucky UPS workers to leave the majority of us to rot so you can have a wage increase, but they are also the least likely to vote by far.

Trick, Sawman can answer for himself as I don't know him from Adam, but my understanding is this is all pure hypothetical conjecture at this point, an exercise in "what if".

 

[sawman]

Pony1,
Sorry, I have not been on since yesterday morning.
As far as when and how, I can not answer when.
How? When the APWA determines that the time is right they will petition the NLRB to take a vote, with 30% signing the petition the NLRB will then hold a secret ballot vote of Ups hourlies and if 50% vote for the APWA, they will become our bargaining agents.

 

[sawman]

Oh, by the way!

GOOD MORNING UPS79!

I'll still talk to you, even if you want talk to me.

 

[wkmac]

pkgman,
Excellent point about PTers taking a pay freeze and what about employees in progression in FT jobs? I can't see an auto mechanic for example leaving an OK job to come to UPS to be locked into 70% of top pay for 2 years. OK2BC also raise a valid observation about current PTers and I see the 2 job PTers as well. Many are small business owners of various types in the day and work the sorts at night for the insurance. Everything from landscape to real estate to insurance people to an auto body shop owner who BTW is the a whale of a paint man. Done some nice work on a few UPSer rides. All these folks are just here until as such point their business grows to the point that insurance would not be such a big draw from their bottomline. They have no interest in going FT but I have mentioned the current pension situation. They are mildly interested but don't feel in the end it will be apart of their life. All are not union members either and this really gets to my point. I think a majority of union member UPSers will give serious thought to any option that presents itself pertaining to the pension situation but the non member is an open book. Why is the non memeber an issue? Because let's face it folks, what we are really talking about here is de-certifying the Teamsters and certifying APWA as our bargaining agent. Now in voting out the Teamsters this may only involve members but I honestly don't know but before I worked at UPS I worked at a company that the Teamsters tried to get in and we had a vote and everyone voted but there was no union present. How it would work for us I don't know. BTW I voted no on the Teamsters in case you were wondering.

The bottomline is right now this is just a discussion at best. We are a LLLOOOOONNNNGGGGG way from getting to the point of having to make a choice. "IF" APWA gets blessed as a bargaining agent by the fed. gov't watch the Carolinas especially NC. IMO it will be these folks who will first move to de certify at a UPS facility. If and once this happens then all the issues will get more serious.

I can flat tell you that Mr. Silkman told me the pay freeze and buyout is not an issue on APWA plate at this time. So any discussion on this is just some wishful thinking or some folks trying to force it out and make it an issue and once APWA becomes official I do believe this option should be discussed and considered.

I'd cut UPS79 some slack as he may be in a very good situation and wants to protect what he already has. We are acting no different it's just we are or may not be in as good a position and just want something better. I do however agree we all should keep it civil. JMO.

 

[sawman]

Beleive me, when it comes to securing there futures and pensions, they will sign.
As far as employees in progression, it has nothing to do with there progression raises, only annual raise that everyone recieves.

 

[sawman]

Also, as far as the part-timers go. the vote will be counted calculated as all are, as a persentage of those who actually cast a vote. If you don't vote you don't count. We all know that 90% of the part-timers don't every cast votes, so I don't see them being a major factor anyway.

 

[sawman]

Mr. Skillman is not legally able to bring the pay freeze option to the table at this time because the APWA is not yet our bargaining agent, but believe me, once the APWA is voted in, this issue will rise to the top in a hurry.

 

[trickpony1]

sawman,
I'm having mixed emotions about this wage freeze that may revert back to my intense mistrust of the company. I realize what we have now (with the Teamster's) is rapidly decaying but who's to say the company can be trusted with the money that we "give" them through a wage freeze and who's to say our concession won't start a sequence of future concessions?
It's my opinion that UPS does things for two reasons and guess what?.....you and I are neither of those reasons. Those reasons are:
1)make money and;
2)prevent lawsuits.
The thrift plan was dissolved because UPS decided that they loved us and wanted us to be "partners" and ,yes, I made some money on the deal so four people don't have to post telling me how well they did. But since the IPO the stock hasn't done as well as when it was privately owned nor has it split with the regularity. UPS doesn't care because they have our (my) money and they can blame the poor stock performance on the market analysts. On more than one occasion UPS has shown us (me) that they are above the laws of the land and accountable to no one. While your gesture is a noble one will it turn out to be a mistake when UPS figures out they can now call the shots and there is nothing we (the hourlies) can do?

 

[robonono]

trickpony1,

OK, I agree that UPS hasn't been busting down the door since it went public. What's the surprise there, neither has the overall market. For comparison purposes only here are the closing numbers on 11/10/99 compared to 04/29/05 for the DOW (DJIA), NASDAQ, and UPS:
DOW_______10,597.71_____10,192.51_____(03.82%)
NASDAQ_____3,155.96______1,921.65_____(39.11%)
UPS___________68.125________71.31_______4.68%

(Message edited by robonono on May 01, 2005)