The Retirees's Association ( Faculty, Librarian, Administrator), University of Windsor, Windsor, Ont. Canada

Vol IX , No. 3, June 1999

Pension Surplus

Retirees Association Meets With President Paul

A Special Meeting of the Executive Committee was held with Dr. Ross Paul, President of the University, on April 22, 1999 to brief him on the Retirees' concerns with respect to the disbursement of Pension Surplus over the previous two Contracts. Further, it was necessary to impress upon him that the recently declared surplus of $ 2.89 million should entirely go to improve the lot of retirees. The following brief (April 13, 1999) was presented to him.

Dr. Ross Paul, President and Vice-Chancellor
University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario

Dear President Paul:

Since your arrival on campus, you have consistently evinced good will and a sense of appreciation to the University's retirees and its Association (WURA). We very much appreciate these expressions of support, and it is within that spirit of amity that I address to you this statement of our concerns.

In general, we retirees are anxious to maintain both a healthy relationship and mutually beneficial involvement with the University itself. More recently, our energies in this direction have been motivated by our own unhappiness with pension provisions during the current and past (1996-1998) negotiated Agreements.

As you already know, the University's Retirees Association (WURA) is very unhappy with the disposition of excess surpluses during both contracts. In the current contract, only 4.42 % of those monies accrue to a few of the worse-case, minimum-guarantee retirees. In our judgment, this is a disproportionate and unjust distribution of a pension surplus.

An index of the unfairness is that by about February, 2002, there will be employees at this University, hired since 1996, who will have enjoyed a pay increase (= a pension-payment holiday) for up to 5 ½ years, financed out of our pension Plan. That means that they will not have not paid a cent from earned income into our jointly shared pension Plan over a 5½ -year period, At the same time, there are minimum-guarantee retirees who have never had a pension holiday, and who are receiving pension increments, modest at best, that are nothing like the percentage-increases currently enjoyed by active faculty and librarians. One wants to ask if we are still talking about the same pension plan.

Repeatedly, we protested these pension-benefits provisions to our own Faculty Association which is legally mandated to negotiate on our behalf. We protested before and during the last set of negotiations. We were ignored. A group of eight retirees formally grieved against the University of Windsor through the Faculty Association Grievance Committee (Article D14). Our grievance explicitly signaled the failure of the University to establish a Retired Members Pension Committee to examine "the adequacy of the retirement benefits provided by the University," and to file recommendations (all this under Article D7)

Our argument is that if the D7 Committee had met, it could/would have diagnosed inadequacy in the area of excess-surplus distribution (already implemented during the 1996-98 period)lj , and made suitable recommendations. Our grievance was turned down. We then appealed both to the Faculty Association Executive, and to the larger Association Council. Both appeals were turned down, the second narrowly.

We realize, of course, that our future fortunes depend very much on our voice being heeded at the right time, in the right places. To this end, WURA is in the process if applying to the Faculty Association for exclusive recognition as the body representing University of Windsor retired faculty, librarians and "certain others " (from administration). We are also, within a Task Force, pursuing voting representation on Faculty Association Contract and Executive Committees, and a consultative presence on the Negotiating Committee.

WURA representatives are also members of the recently established--finally--Retired Members Pension Committee (stipulated in Article D7) to which we have just submitted a list of themes and topics for discussion.

At this stage we have not yet decided if we will appeal, in terms of negligence and bad faith, against our own Faculty Association to the Ontario Labor Relations Board. In the meantime, we just learned today, though we have not been officially informed, that there is more excess surplus in the fund to be distributed.

We suspect that the Faculty Association, as it resumes negotiations over this latest surplus installment, will want to adhere to the same unjust proportions. Until we in WURA have negotiated improved representation on the Faculty Association and its Contract Committee, we do not believe that we will receive just treatment from them in the area of pension benefits. We believe that the University itself, which most of us served between 30 to 40 years, may be more attentive to our cause.

Accordingly, we urge you to delay the resumption of negotiations over the disposition of the current surplus pot, until both the Faculty Association and the University of Windsor negotiating teams include more sensitive and just provisions for the Plan's pensioners. If this is not done, the percentage of the surplus accruing to retirees will drop well below the already unconscionable level of 4.42%

We look forward to the opportunity for discussing this issue with you on your visit to the Retirees' Executive on April 22.

Dr. Paul sympathized with the retirees concerns and he strongly felt, that retirees who made a great contribution to build this University should not be treated in this manner. However, he noted that he has to respect the present structures of dealing with the Faculty Association and work within the provisions of the Collective Agreement. While he was not inclined to tell the Faculty Association how to do their job, he did indicate that he will consult with his staff and seek their advice in the matter.

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