My Notice of Teamster/ UPS Pension being gutted has arrived

klein

Für Meno :)
The basic purpose of a pension is so that you won't have to work when you retire. Some, if not most, of us may choose to work. I have already been fitted for my blue vest and practice "Welcome to Walmart" as I drive to my next stop.

And that little bit of money, will just cover your new medicare expenses.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
And that little bit of money, will just cover your new medicare expenses.

Klein, my pension will be between $4,500-5,000 per month. SS will be around $1,200 as I plan to take it as soon as I am eligible. I hope to leave my 401k alone until I am forced to start taking withdrawals, which is at 70 1/2. (Why is everything associated with a 401k always 1/2?) I plan on eating the good cat food when I retire.:wink2:
 

grgrcr88

No It's not green grocer!
I received a letter in the mail today from the pension people. It was a notice of amendments to the pension. The part that affects me the most, informs me that I can't be paid a retirement for any reason if under the age of 57 and at age 57 I am only eligible for 46% of what I was originally promised.

Just because I have worked for them since I was 18 should not affect when I am able to take a 20, 25, or 30 year pension. I thought age discrimination was illegal in this country!!!

Looks like our so-called leaders are rolling over again. I wonder how much under the table money they received for voting for that garbage?

What you received was a letter from the central states fund which we are no longer a part of. The UPS/Teamster plan is now completely seperate from the central states fund. The benefits you are now guaranteed are written into your contract and cannot be changed unless the contract is renegotiated. You will still receive letters from central states because you will get benefits from both plans, anything that central states does not cover in the negotiated contractual benefits will be picked up by the UPS/Teamster plan.
 

grgrcr88

No It's not green grocer!
As for the pension issue I have already covered that in my retraction. One which contained what I considered a very humble apology.

As for the opportunity issue, the first and only full-time job offer I received came to me after I had worked for UPS for 19 years and 2 months. Not every hub and center has the same oportunities. Weather you consider it choice or not, the fact that I pay union dues gives me the right to "bitch" all I damn well please. Thank you very much!

I do agree with your sentiment about Central States. Without knowing all the facts, it appears to me, the people who run that fund need to be fired and perhaps investigated for possible criminal activity. In my humble opinion.

You should not bitch about things you do not understand!!
 

Re-Raise

Well-Known Member
How can someone work here for 25 years and not know that the part-time pension is completely seperate from the full-time teamster pension? This guy is in for a real surprise.

If you have really been here 25 years you do get to pick out a gift from rewardsuite. I got a pretty decent tourneau watch.
 

Just Lurking

Well-Known Member
My understanding was the company part time pension started paying when you reached full retirement age according to the plan. Which would be the first of the month after turning age 65.

I recently received pension letter detailing my 11 years of part time. $465 per month starting Oct 1 ,2031. Pretty depressing.
 
Direct your bitches to the company and the guy in the mirror. The union has no control over you choosing to work where you "chose" to for 19 years.

I always get a laugh out of these poor me posts especially after 25 years. It's always someone elses fault.

Hmm, you obviously have missed my point entirely. Let me try to spoon feed it for you.

Yes.
I chose to work for UPS.
I chose to become a dues paying union member.
I chose to remain in the same area within the company because it has been what I needed for various stages in my life.
I do not deny that, nor do I blame anyone else for it.

The problem is:


  1. I made the decision to do all of that based on the fact that I was told I would get "x,y,z" in return. Now that it is looking like I will actually be able to collect on those promises I am told I am going to get something else that is far less valuable than originally promised.
  2. It IS a union problem because half of the board that governs my pension is comprised of union representatives. They are voting to accept what has turned out to be a penalty for people in my position after promising something different.
  3. The rest of the world calls this "bait and switch" (at least in retail). Since the union officials had to vote for this, it is likely they will not use their ability to defend us against it.
That is what upsets me most. The other issues are just fuel to the frustration fire that is blazing in my mind.

I hope this helps. If not, I can post some numbers and quotes from my letters.
 
How can someone work here for 25 years and not know that the part-time pension is completely seperate from the full-time teamster pension? This guy is in for a real surprise.

If you have really been here 25 years you do get to pick out a gift from rewardsuite. I got a pretty decent tourneau watch.

It is not entirely separate.

It was started as a separate entity and continues to be. However, when you enter into the combo pension area it is connected to your full time pension in so much as: What ever you make from the company pension is subtracted from your full time pension and you get two checks at a certain point (age 65 I believe).

So, you are correct to the degree that it has a separate governing body. However, the deals that were brokered when setting up the combo pension make them tied together if you take a full time union job. That is the way the pension reps explained it to me in the meetings we had before that contract was voted on.
 
How can someone work here for 25 years and not know that the part-time pension is completely seperate from the full-time teamster pension? This guy is in for a real surprise.

If you have really been here 25 years you do get to pick out a gift from rewardsuite. I got a pretty decent tourneau watch.

Forgot to add:

The letter I received that has gotten me so upset was signed by the UPS Pension Fund Board of Trustees. Which, as you may know, has a union rep on it.


As for the 25 year gift, I can update my status on that:
I did finally receive a letter giving me instructions on how to collect mine. I received that two days ago 05/22/2011. Yes, my 25th anniversary date was a month and a half ago. I logged on today 05/24/2011 to find I still can not gain access to the site to claim my reward. The IT people are investigating it for me.
 
You should not bitch about things you do not understand!!

I agree somewhat. That is why I put the qualifing statement "Without knowing all the facts..." in my post.

However, I can give a great number of examples where nearly everyone "bitches" about things they do not understand. The most glaring one is politics. Another is economics. the list goes on...
 
What you received was a letter from the central states fund which we are no longer a part of. The UPS/Teamster plan is now completely seperate from the central states fund. The benefits you are now guaranteed are written into your contract and cannot be changed unless the contract is renegotiated. You will still receive letters from central states because you will get benefits from both plans, anything that central states does not cover in the negotiated contractual benefits will be picked up by the UPS/Teamster plan.

Yes. If you had bothered reading the entire thread before posting, you would have found where I issued an apology for making the mistake of not looking at the letter head on the first letter that sparked this thread.
 
Klein, my pension will be between $4,500-5,000 per month. SS will be around $1,200 as I plan to take it as soon as I am eligible. I hope to leave my 401k alone until I am forced to start taking withdrawals, which is at 70 1/2. (Why is everything associated with a 401k always 1/2?) I plan on eating the good cat food when I retire.:wink2:

WOW! According to the letter I received the other day, my pension is going to be around $1500/month in exchange for my 25 years of service.

News like this places bright light on the fact that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is not a real union. It is a conglomeration of smaller, disconnected, unions. We call them locals, but if they are allowed to operate autonomously (they are to a large degree) they are unions in and of themselves. The international is just a corporate style management layer on top them. Another bureaucracy we have to pay for. This fact is why we can not build solidarity and it is the biggest criticism we receive from skill and trade unions.

But kudos on figuring out how to get 4-5k out of ups :-)
 
The basic purpose of a pension is so that you won't have to work when you retire. Some, if not most, of us may choose to work. I have already been fitted for my blue vest and practice "Welcome to Walmart" as I drive to my next stop.

I agree. But at the rate corporate America is dismantling pensions and given the fact that things generally cost more in the future, it is not a realistic expectation that we will be able to do that. My dad and uncle both worked for South Central Bell and back in the 1960s they thought a $600/month pension sounded like a comfortable living. Ask them today what they think about it and you will get a sermon. When I get to be 65 years old my $1500/month probably won't cover my yearly property tax let alone my monthly utility bills. Those of you who are expecting to relax with 3k/month better get started on your IRAs before it is too late.
 
We are no longer part of the Central States Pension Fund.

See my reply to the post on the UPS pension plan being "completely separate" from the teamster pension.

The plan reps told me, those of us who have vesting in all three will at age 65 receive 3 separate checks. If you retire before then the UPS/Teamster plan will pay the entire amount until age 65. Then your check from the UPS/Teamster plan will be reduced by the same amount you receive from the other plans.

So, yes we are still part of central states even if UPS no longer contributes to it on our behalf. However, that only is for those who have been here long enough to have been vested in it. New people will not have the headache of keeping up with all that crap.

As explained to me, the only excaption to this is if the UPS/Teamster plan requests that your vesting be transferred to their plan and Central States grants the transfer. However, they are only likely to do that if you have very little vesting. The rep I spoke with said they "might" do it for me since I was only in central states for 2 years but she could not guarantee it.
 
Whew! I think I caught up on all my replies.

Please remember, non of this is intended to elicit a fight. I am just frustrated with what looks like a scenario where I am getting short changed.

If what I have posted causes you any worry I encourage you to contact your plan administrator to find out more details. I hope that you have better luck that I have had and I hope we can unite and vote to fix these shortcomings. Try to take on the "No worker left behind" attitude. After all, that is what a union is supposed to do.
 

UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)

Well-Known Member
WOW! According to the letter I received the other day, my pension is going to be around $1500/month in exchange for my 25 years of service.

News like this places bright light on the fact that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is not a real union. It is a conglomeration of smaller, disconnected, unions. We call them locals, but if they are allowed to operate autonomously (they are to a large degree) they are unions in and of themselves. The international is just a corporate style management layer on top them. Another bureaucracy we have to pay for. This fact is why we can not build solidarity and it is the biggest criticism we receive from skill and trade unions.

But kudos on figuring out how to get 4-5k out of ups :-)

The NYS Teamster Pension Plan is a multi-employer plan with UPS as the largest employer by far.
 
Forgot to add:

Well, after not hearing back from "Upsers.com" for a long while I decided to call the awards people today. They told me they do not use upers it is an internal site. I couldn't help be think to myself "Why the hell put it in your instruction sheet if you don't use it?" I didn't say that but I was thinking it strongly enough she could have "felt the vibe". hehe Anyway, if anyone else has trouble with the UPSers site use the "www.rewardsuite.com" . The instructions sheet has the wrong adress for that as well. Don't put the "ups." on the front as indicated in the instruction sheet. What kind of nimrod wrote that anyway? Oh well, at least they got their phone number correct. I asked the woman what is the difference between the two programs "Years of service" and "UPS LOS Retro Program". She said LOS is "Length of Service". I said ok but just out of curiosity, what is the difference? She said there is nothing in the Years of service program so you have to choose LOS. I said I can see that... then I realized she wasn't going to tell me so I gave her the big Ooh Kayyy. And said thanks for your help. So, anyone know what the difference is between the two programs is? Am I to assume length of service is just for full time years and LOS is for people who started out part time? Or is it some sort of union/non union thing? Just curious.
 
This is the "Paragraphed" version of the post above. I had to unblock some of the scripts on this site to get the text editor to work.

Well, after not hearing back from "Upsers.com" for a long while I decided to call the awards people today. They told me they do not use upsers it is an internal site. I couldn't help be think to myself "Why the hell put it in your instruction sheet if you don't use it?" I didn't say that but I was thinking it strongly enough she could have "felt the vibe". hehe

I asked the woman what is the difference between the two programs "Years of service" and "UPS LOS Retro Program". She said LOS is "Length of Service". I said ok but just out of curiosity, what is the difference? She said there is nothing in the Years of service program so you have to choose LOS. I said I can see that... then I realized she wasn't going to tell me so I gave her the big Ooh Kayyy. And said thanks for your help.

So, anyone know what the difference is between the two programs is? Am I to assume length of service is just for full time years and LOS is for people who started out part time? Or is it some sort of union/non union thing? Just curious.
 
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