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The Retirees' Newsletter

The Faculty and Librarian Retirees' Association, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada

Issue # 20 -- December, 1996

THE PRESIDENT'S REPORT

by Edwin Habib, Association President

(Following is a partial text of the President's Report to the Fall Meeting)

THIS YEAR MARKED THE END OF THE SOCIAL CONTRACT AND THE BEGINNING OF NEW RESTRAINTS on the university system by the Province. Due to funding uncertainties, our new Collective Agreement was made valid for only two years instead of the usual three.

IN OUR NEGOTIATION PROCESS the various committees of the Faculty Association submit proposals to the Contract Committee, which screens them. Finally, if approved by Council, these proposals become the bargaining position of the Faculty Association.

THE RETIREES AND BENEFITS COMMITTEE, on which we have three representatives, submitted the following proposals which are of interest to the retirees:

1) Continuation of the Voluntary Early Retirement Programme (VER) to be funded from the Pension Plan surplus.

2) Contract buyouts not to be funded from the Pension Plan surplus. There are legal implications here.

(We expected that the surplus would be more than sufficient to fund the VER. According to the rules of the Pension Commission of Ontario, the size of the surplus cannot exceed a certain value. The excess must be used for pension benefits. However, at that time we did not know that it was very large indeed).

3) Money Purchase pension payments should be averaged over a period of four years to avoid large fluctuations. This was not accepted by the Contract Committee because of a problem connected with the initial implementation.

4) The Retirees Medical Plan should be included in the Faculty Medical Plan. The mean age of the combined group would be less than the mean age of the retirees but greater than the mean ageof the faculty. The details of funding should be decided through negotiations. This item was not accepted by the Contract Committee but we lobbied Council and succeeded in getting it included in the proposals.

5) Retirees who had service with the university before the pension started should be given full benefit for that service instead of one half the number of years. This was not successfully negotiated, probably because, if successful, these members would have been treated better than the women who had a similar claim.

THE PENSION PLAN SURPLUS TURNED OUT TO BE VERY LARGE and will be reduced as follows:

• The VER will be continued.
• Retirees will get an increase of 2.5% in the Minimum Guarantee.
• A sum was set aside to pay for the University's cost of the pension contribution for past service of certain female members of the Plan. This resulted from the settlement of a grievance on behalf of women who were excluded from the plan for a period at the start of their service with the university.
• The Minimum Guarantee formula was modified so as to improve the benefit. This will affect only future retirees.
• Faculty contribution to the plan suspended for the term of the agreement.

Supplementary Note:

Pat Galasso asked why the retirees got only 2.5% increase in the Minimum Guarantee while in the last contract they got 5%, and why I did not lobby for a greater increase. The increase we got last time was a surprise to everyone. The surplus was never so large that it had to be reduced to conform to the rules of the Pension Commission. There was no reason to expect that there would be an increase this year. The Pension Plan Surplus is determined by means of an actuarial calculation in which many assumptions are made. By changing these assumptions slightly, the surplus can be made to increase greatly or disappear entirely. Before these calculations (which must be accepted by the Pension Commission) were done, no one knew what the outcome would have been.

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