What would you do if you dedicated 20+ years of your life to a company to only have the rug pilled out from under you? If your wondering one can ask the growing number of workers that are seeing their hard work and retirement plans taken and stolen from them though more importantly their families. This is the case for Retired 63 year old ironworker Joe Finley with his pension reduced significantly leaving him with less than half the monthly amount he is used to receiving. Finley began working as an ironworker in 1972 after one year of college and retired in 2008.
So here we have a man who did everything he was supposed to do, get a job, work hard, pay taxes, save and retire with your plan in place to enjoy your golden years and I feel this mans life has just gotten stolen from him. This is something that he gave his time and labor as well as paid into and their taking half from him with no chance of recourse. Please do explain to me how a 63 years old man is just supposed to make new retirement plans when he worked his whole life toward this end...? This is in plain robbery and im sure im not over stating that this will lead to deaths either from depression, suicides or just giving up. Though just as always their will be NO relief or charges handed for misuse of funds.
Joe goes on to say that he and his fellow workers are stunned by the announcement. Many of the workers said they sacrificed time with family and other opportunities so that they could earn a secure income stream in retirement. Joe himself regularly worked 12 hours a day and took weekend shifts so that he could earn more credits for his pension. Now, his monthly check is set to be reduced to $1,900, from the roughly $3,500 he was previously receiving. The lost income is about equal to his monthly mortgage payment, causing Finley to worry that he may have to put his three-bedroom home on the market. Now Joe will have to downsize and his usual way of life and living will now have to be changed because some other man in a suit has the right to take half of his lifes work away and Im sure with no guarantees that the rest will not be cut either.
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The unprecedented move comes after a 2014 law made it possible for troubled pension plans to reduce benefits to retirees if it would improve the financial health of the fund. The legislation dealt a major blow to federal protections that for nearly 40 years guarded the financial promises made to retirees. Funny how they timed it perfect huh? 2014 law and then the very next few years BAM to the chopping block. This reminds me of when banks just a few yeras ago changed our titles from insured depositors to unsecured creditors which in short means your money is not your once placed in the bank. Its true look it up...
Unfortunately Joe and his states union are far from the only ones to have issues. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has won the unfortunate award for "First Pension to Officially Run Out of Money." According to the New York Daily News, and a host of angry former truck drivers who've had their pension benefits slashed, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) has officially been forced to step in and take over payments to retirees of the Local 707, albeit at a much lower rate.
Heres what union 707 Chmil had to say “I had a union job for 30 years, We had collectively bargained contracts that promised us a pension. I paid into it with every paycheck. Everyone told us, ‘Don’t worry, you have a union job, your pension is guaranteed.’ Well, so much for that.”
“It’s a nightmare, it has just devastated all of our lives. I’ve gone from having $48,000 a year to less than half that,” said Chmil, one of five Local 707 retirees who agreed to share their stories with the Daily News last week. Friend Ray Narvaez stated “I don’t want other people to have to go through this. We need everyone to wake up and do something; that’s why we’re talking,” said Ray Narvaez.
Real people being affected and lied to ~
Narvaez and other workers recieved a letter one day stating that monthly pensions had to be slashed by more than a third. It was an emergency move to try to keep the dying fund solvent. That dropped Narvaez from nearly $3,500 to about $2,000.
“They said they were running out of money, that there could be no more in the pension fund, so we had to take the cut,” said Narvaez, whose wife was recently diagnosed with cancer. The stopgap measure didn’t work and after years of dangling over the precipice, Local 707’s pension fund fell off the financial cliff this month. With no money left, it turned to Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp a government insurance company that covers pension. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. picked up Local 707’s retiree payouts but the maximum benefit it gives a year is roughly $12,000, for workers who racked up at least 30 years. For those with less time on the job, the payouts are smaller. Narvaez now gets a whopping $1,170 a month before taxes.
Also on the brink of drying up are the pensions for two Teamster locals — 641 and 560 — in New Jersey, union officials said. Plus 35,000 Teamster members upstate who are part of the money-hemorrhaging New York State Teamsters Pension Fund. Bigger than all of New York’s Teamster locals combined is the Central States Pension Fund — another looming financial disaster that could leave 407,000 retirees without pensions across the Midwest and South. Do you see any end in sight?
This is a huge mess that the expected pensionee are in here and unfortunately I dont see any end in sight or happy conclusion. We have the congress and the fed constantly saying things are fantastic, in transition or on the the up and up with no real attention to this current occurring storm. We have pensions being cut, retailers closing left and right and individual as well as state debts growing at experiential rates. We even have good ole American Harley Davidson in serious trouble. An exert from Wolfstreet.com: Shares of Harley-Davidson (HOG) dropped 10% in the morning after the company reported second-quarter earnings and were down nearly 6% at the end of the day. Almost everything was bad. Retail sales by its dealers in the US fell 9.3% in Q2, compared to a year ago, to 49,668 motorcycles. They were “down more than we anticipated,” the company said. And with “soft sales across most markets,” sales by its dealers globally fell 6.7%. Harley is announcing more layoffs and is now building a plant in Thailand to help with cost.
So we have Heinz/Kraft that are closing 5 factories, Harley Davidson that's not opening factories in the US but in foreign countries and that list can go on and on. What was all this talk about new factories opening up in the states and all the new jobs that would follow . This trend that is happening is deadly to say the least and is the exact opposite of what we are being told is occurring. We also have the coming automation that will no doubt end many careers and jobs. I have no idea what I would do if I was 63, still with a house payment, bills still revolving , kids that might still need attention and just regular life issues to deal with. If you were in this spot with no new skills or chance at college I ask you what would you do...?
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