Supplement Pension Fund

Brothers and Sisters the truth is we are really being misled and not being told the truth about our pension fund. We should demand a Full Independent Investigation and a Full Independent Accounting reported to the membership.

In 2003 The Unity Team DECEIVED you and took $1 dollar an hour out of YOUR pocket and put it into a creation they call "a supplement pension fund" that has cost you over $11 thousand dollars in lost wages, money that could have been better used to assist your families as you struggle to pay for rising fuel and food prices!

The supplemental pension fund should be eliminated and either the $1 dollar an hour is credited to the real “pension fund” or returned back to the membership's pocket!

History Lesson 101

In June of 2003, Unity Team President Peter Thomassen addressed the delegate body on the status of our benefit funds. He told the delegates “our welfare fund was doing so well that the trustees have decided beginning July 1, 2003 to reduced the hourly contributions in the welfare fund by $1 per hour and reallocate the $1 per hour into the pension fund."

Thomassen also stated “this reallocation of $1 per hour from the welfare fund to the pension fund is seamless to the membership and only a temporary measure as a way to infuse some extra money into the pension fund to help build up the pension fund assets.”

He also stated that the $1 per hour increase into the pension fund “will not increase the pension fund pay-out to members."

The $1.00 will be put into a "Supplemental Pension Fund" and "the trustees will monitor the funds closely and move the $1 per hour back to the welfare fund should it become necessary."

Fast Forward to July 2004:

The Unity Team now informs the delegate body the welfare fund surplus is all gone (because $1 was taken out in June 2003). The Unity Team recommends putting $1.00 per hour out of a $2.82 per hour carpenter raise received on July 1, 2004 into the welfare fund to increase funding.

It is at that point, what was said to be "temporary and seamless" to the members in 2003 has now become permanent and seamed in 2004!

Remember the Unity Team said in July of 2003, "the $1 per hour welfare fund surplus that was moved out of the welfare fund and into the supplemental pension fund is temporary and seamless to the members, and we will move the $1 per hour back to the welfare fund should it become necessary."

The $1 dollar an hour supplemental pension benefit is now taken out of your pocket with the pay raise on July 1, 2004, and is costing you thousands of dollars per year in lost wages without any pension benefit!

Question: Why wasn't the $1 per hour moved back to the welfare fund "should it become necessary", as was promised in June of 2003?

Fast forward to April 2005:

Unity Team President Peter Thomassen says “that our pension fund is doing okay and the fund had double digits returns on its investments.”

He also said carpenters hours last year total about 16 million and that although the $1.00 per hour in the “supplemental pension fund” helps ($1 x 16M hours = $16M) it’s “really insignificant when you’re talking about a 1 billion dollar fund.”

Question: If the pension fund is doing “OKAY” in 2005, why was the pension benefit CUT 26 PERCENT in 2006?

Question: If the $1.00 per hour in the “supplemental pension fund” is "really insignificant when you’re talking about a 1 billion dollar fund," why is it still in the supplemental pension fund and not returned to the member's pocket, where it belongs?

This is why you cannot trust anything The Unity Team says!