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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JonFrum" data-source="post: 228093">60% . . . Where's your PROOF?Engineer79,You and other APWA supporters have been claiming for over a year now, that 60% of UPS' contributions to the pension fund go to fund other peoples' retirement benefits, and only 40% goes to fund the retirement of UPSers.I began asking back in 2006: Where is the proof for these astounding numbers?  I asked repeatedly for a play-by-play description of exactly how this money (the 60%) travels through the system and into who's retirement pocket it goes. I never got a satisfactory answer.  Mostly I got endless restatements of The Point as if it was a self-evident fact, or as if it was The Truth because John McDevitt, a UPS official said it was, and testified about it in Congress.  Sorry, but that doesn't make it so. His testimony has been refuted by TDU and NABER as I referenced at the time. People testify to false information all the time in Congress.  Liberals believe one thing, Conservatives, the opposite. Democrats one thing, Republicans, another. Sometimes thay are deliberately lieing, usually they are just mistaken in their belief.For what it's worth, UPSersDotCom had the testimony and even Mr. McDevitt's spreadsheet posted in their multi-employer pension section, but they took it down a while ago. I don't know why.One past poster even claimed, twice(!), that the McDevitt testimony was given before the Supreme Court and so, must be true!The 60% figure seems to be the very basis of the APWA movement and was mentioned by Danny Eason on the radio just recently.I've never believed the 60% figure. First, I think the analysis of TDU an NABOR was correct. Second, it's not credible that The Figure would stay exactly 60% year after year. It never seems to vary. Third, like almost everything APWA says, it seems to be drawn from the Central States Pension situation, but is often generalized to all funds, and all Teamsters, and all UPSers. Regional differences are not acknowledged. Fourth, if money is lost in the market, as Central States lost about $6 billion, this money is gone. It is not being given to retirees of other companies. It's gone!Fifth, although there is undoubtedly subsidizing going on, (subsidies are inherent in all group arrangements), the idea that the amount is 60% is so excessive as to not be believable without substantial proof. I could believe 6% or 16% or 26% perhaps, and not demand proof; but 60%, that requires proof. Sixth, no one has ever answered my request for an explanation of how it is legal to take so much of one person's money and give it to another. If the Trustees have been doing this for years and haven't been charged and jailed, then what they are doing must be legal. What is the legal basis? If it's illegal, why haven't you filed charges against them to stop it? Seventh, UPS runs a workplace where it is very difficult for most employees to last for the decades that are required to actually qualify for a significant pension. Many employees must settle for no pension, or a reduced pension, or a delayed pension. Few qualify for the maximum benefit.  It isn't enough that the money was contributed on your behalf. You must *also* qualify to receive it back in the form of a pension, by putting in the required number of years and be the required age.  Most UPSers, as the result of the way UPS runs its business, and the policies it adopts, just don't qualify to receive back all the money they put in. The money is, in effect, abandoned and becomes the property of the fund. This is largely UPS' fault, although the Teamsters are to blame as well for allowing UPS to get away with it. Eighth, If you switch to a new Teamsters/UPS fund, you have the same problem because you still are dealing with the same company and its retirement-hostile policies. Nineth, If you switch to an APWA/UPS fund, again, you're still dealing with that same company and its retirement-hostile policies. If you don't qualify for a pension, or for a particular pension benefit level, well, you're out of luck. It doesn't matter what fund you're in. If you don't qualify, you don't qualify. End of story. I admit that in a UPSers-only fund, the truckloads of abandoned money would stay in the UPSers-only fund, but that wouldn't mean *you* would get the money, or even that the money you abandon would at least go to some fellow UPSer. In all likelyhood, the money would make the fund seem fully funded, perhaps even overfunded, and so UPS would be required to contribute little or no money in the following years. They seem to contribute only the legally required minimum to the funds they currently run.  In single-employer funds, UPS benefits financially every time an employee's career is derailed for any reason.  This is true of Management and Hourly alike. We should not be giving UPS major incentives to get rid of us.</blockquote>

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