Fall General Meeting

Tuesday, October 27, 1998, 2.00 p.m. Hoffman Auditorium, IONA College, University of Windsor.

Present: Basic,M; Benedict;W; Billinghurst, R; Blair, M; Brownlie,M; Burton B; Callaghan,J; Chandler,R; Chatterjee, K; Chee,S; Crowell,G; Cunningham,S; Doctor,A; Dorrell,R; Doyle,R;Duggal,K; Faber,S; Fracas,G; Goerzen,S; Gregor,J; Gupta,A; Habowky,J; Hackett,J; Halford,P; Hedgecock,N; Howell,R;Huschilt,J; Johnston,R; Krause,L; Laba,J; LaGaipa,J; Marshall,A; Marzotto,E; McKenney,D; Monforton,G; Moore,H; Moriarity,R Nelson,R; Nicodemo,R; Nolan,P; Pazik,R; Petras,M;Pillay,D;Pryke,K; Rappe,I;Sabina,L;Sarkar,K;Schiller,J; Shklov,N; Singh,R; Smith,C; Sridhar,K; Stager,R; Stewart,D; Taylor,P; Whitehurst,R; Zin,M.

Kumar Chatterjee acted as Chair and Datta Pillay as Secretary.

1. Minutes of March 12, 1998 Spring General Meeting. It was moved by Stan Cunningham and seconded by Mansell Blair that the minutes be approved - Carried.

2. Remarks by Dr. Ross Paul, President, University of Windsor (see page 1 of this newsletter).

3. Remarks of Dr. John Meyer -Vice President, Faculty Association. Dr. Meyer was substituting for Dr. Gordon Drake, President who was away. He stated that he may be joining the ranks of retirees soon and stressed that retirees concerns are sensitive for financial reasons. He said, while retirees are removed from the collective bargaining process, they must exercise potential clout with the Faculty Association who should be sensitive to retirees, to hear them out. He mentioned that unions don't include retirees and OCUFA should develop Rights and Responsibilities of Retirees. Universities with no unions have a variation in Retiree participation including BOG Council. He is looking into legal entitlements of Faculty Association and the University of Windsor.

In a recent Supreme Court decision associations have fiduciary responsibilities to retirees as pension plan. He suggested that retirees should be pro active with the Faculty Association and CAUT by having input and seek representation on key committees.

4. Remarks by Mr. Jim Skinner-As part of an overview of the performance of pension funds, he said, we enjoyed extremely good rates of return in the pension, averaging approximately 11% over the past ten years.

In order for the money purchase portion of your pension to increase, the plan must earn a minimum of 6%. The reason for this is that at retirement, before the money purchase entitlement is calculated, the actuary assumes an annual 6% increase for all future years. With market trends shifting, he said, he would be less than honest if he did not forewarn us that there is a good possibility that the plan will not enjoy the rates of return we are currently enjoying.

If this were to happen, and the plan earned less than 6%, this would have a negative impact on your money purchase accounts. As a example, if the plan eared 5%, the impact on the money purchase would be -7% (1%+6% assumed annual increase). For information purposes only, the average pension plan during July and August of this year lost 12%.

Benefits: He is working with Green Shield to amalgamate the Faculty Retirees and the Support Staff Retirees into one benefit group. This should help in controlling costs and provide better protection to retirees. He asked the retirees to point out any short falls in the current plan and he would incorporate them into the proposal.

Pension Payments-Mr. Skinner assumed responsibility for 13 pension payments instead of 12 last year. He assured this will not happen again and the pension payments will be only 12 in future. He said that he checked with the Income Tax Consultants who are of the opinion that Revenue Canada might look upon this as tax avoidance. Also by doing this, at some future time, a cycle will occur whereby 13 payments will be unavoidable.

5. Remarks - Ms Asae Cuthbert - Student Awards'- Ms Cuthbert stated that the Bursary Fund is doing well. Presently, it is about $ 41,687and it is possible to award two bursaries. She has collected applications from potential candidates with a minimum average of 9.0 plus . She asked the Retirees' Executive Committee to make the decision by October 31^st.

6. President's Report - Dr. Kumar Chatterjee.

The new Executive Committee was elected on October 16, 1997. Soon after this we were kept busy in pursuing the concerns and interests of the Retirees. The following are the chronological events and activities for the year 1997/1998:

October 20, 1997

Letter and questionnaire sent to all Retirees requesting suggestions regarding the Pension improvements and Health Benefits.

October 21, 1997

Meeting with the President of the Faculty Association to request more time to submit Retirees input regarding the upcoming contract negotiations.

December 5, 1997

Executive Committee meeting regarding Retirees input to be submitted to the Faculty Association for Contract Committee consideration.

December 8, 1997

Letter to the President of the Faculty Association regarding the Retirees main concerns - Pension improvements and Health Benefit Plans for consideration in the new contract.

January 20, 1998

An awareness letter to all future Retirees to lobby the Faculty Association regarding future issues to improve Pension and Health Benefits.

February 23, 1998

Executive meets with President Ross Paul. Future meetings are planned to discuss the Retirees concerns.

March 12, 1998

Semi-annual meeting, membership approved that we seek representation on the Faculty Association Executive Committee, Contract Committee and the Council.

April 8, 1998

Executive discussion regarding Retirees to attend a General Meeting on April 21, 1998 to present a Notice of Motion regarding disbursement of pension surplus.

Membership Meeting.

June 10, 1998

Meeting with Linda Menard-Watt, information technology service

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