Many pension funds have struggled as fewer workers pay in and older workers retire, threatening retirement holdings. Pensions have grappled with cutting payments or increasing employee contributions. Multi-employer funds, such as Central States, also have the added burden of looking after so-called orphan retirees from bankrupt member companies.
I can't tell you how many trucking companies I've seen go out of business in the last 25 years, plus the former companies who were bought out by bigger fish - Rodeway/Fedex springs to mind.
So the companies went belly up and the retirement payments evaporated with them. Legally the Teamsters Central States were on the hook for payments, but apparently their money management skills left them $36 billion short in a pinch.
This can happen to any of us union or not; company crashes, pension disappeared. Workers need to have a plan B that they personally control.
The salient point to the story worth remembering,
I can't tell you how many trucking companies I've seen go out of business in the last 25 years, plus the former companies who were bought out by bigger fish - Rodeway/Fedex springs to mind.
So the companies went belly up and the retirement payments evaporated with them. Legally the Teamsters Central States were on the hook for payments, but apparently their money management skills left them $36 billion short in a pinch.
This can happen to any of us union or not; company crashes, pension disappeared. Workers need to have a plan B that they personally control.
Most of my friends a few years younger than me literally don't know what those are, I had to explain them.