The Questions & Answers provided below is from the, United Food & Commercial Workers Local 655 Food Employers Joint Pension Fund Trustees.

Your pension fund is invested in stocks, bonds and other investments. When the stock market had a down turn in late 2007 and 2008, it negatively affected our pension fund just like individual investments and 401(k)’s were negatively affected.  Although, for plan years 2007, 2008, & 2009 combined we fared better than over 85% of similar funds, recent changes in federal laws mandate we make that adjustments to the pension plan and submit a rehabilitation plan to the government by November of this year. Below are some frequently asked questions that we hope will help you understand this better.

Pension Q and A

Question:  Am I going to lose my retirement pension like the employees of Enron?
Answer:    No!  You cannot lose your pension with our type of plan.  Our plan is a defined benefit plan.  With this type of plan, you cannot lose the retirement benefit that you have earned unless the plan is deemed insolvent. Our plan is NOT CLOSE to insolvency.  Currently your fund for plan year 2009 (January 1, 2009 - December 31, 2009) is 95.83 funded.

Question:  Am I going to lose my pension that I have earned?
Answer:  No one in any pension fund can lose the credits they have already earned. 

Question:  Am I going to lose the value of what I earned in the pension fund as of this time?
Answer:  This can only happen if a pension fund is deemed insolvent by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC).  Even if that happens, the PBGC will pay a portion of your benefit.  However, our fund is nowhere close to this condition.

Question:  I have heard some pension funds have been hit very hard such as UAW, Union Airline Employees, and others; and retirees have lost much of their retirement.   If I retire with one amount, can that amount be reduced after I retire? 
Answer:   Your amount of pension can only be reduced after you retire if the plan is insolvent.

Question:  Other pension plans are insolvent and ours at Local 655 is not.  Why?
Answer:  The Pension Trustees have been very conservative both with our investments and with our benefit levels.  When we were making reasonable increases in benefits, other funds were making questionable improvements.  This philosophy allowed our fund to maintain a higher funding level.

Question:  Are we going to have to start paying for our pension?
Answer:  No.  Employees generally CANNOT make contributions to a defined benefit plan. Our Plan is exclusively funded from employer contributions and there are no plans to change that.

Question:  Is our pension multiplier going to be reduced below the current amount of $40?
Answer:  This may happen, but only for FUTURE benefits.  Everything you have that is at the current level of $40 or past level of $44 will remain at that rate.

Question:  Are we going to lose the 40 and out?
Answer:  This is an item that could be eliminated in order to get us back to the required funding status. 

Question:  Are we going to lose our ERIP (Early Retirement Incentive Program) in which the cost of Health and Welfare benefits are split with the retiree paying half of the cost and the Fund paying the other half of the cost.
Answer:  This is an item that is negotiable in every contract.  However, the cost of this item is to the Health and Welfare Fund, and does not affect the Pension Fund.

Question:  Are full-time employees the only ones that are going to get to keep their pension?
Answer:  No.  With our type of fund (Taft-Hartley), when contributions are made on all employees, all employees must earn a benefit.  It is illegal to set up the fund so only full-time employees get benefits.  The minimum number of hours needed to earn a benefit could be increased from the current 400 hours not to exceed 1000 hours.

Question:  What happens if the Labor and Management Trustees do not come to an agreement that addresses the funding issue?
Answer:  If the Trustees do not come to an agreement, under the guidelines of the PBGC, the plan will automatically adopt a default plan.

The default plan would consist of:

Question:  When would changes take effect?
Answer:    Although changes to benefits could be implemented any time, it is the goal/intent of the Trustees to delay any changes until 2011. 

If you have additional questions, please contact the Pension Department @ 636-736-2712.