The Retirees' Newsletter Page 5
The Retirees's Association ( Faculty, Librarian, Administrator), University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada
Vol XII I, No. 1, March 2003
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Letter to President Ross Paul |
Dr. Ross Paul, President February 11, 2003
University of Windsor
Dear Dr. Paul:
Several times in your annual appearances before fall general
meetings of the University of Windsor Retirees' Association
(WURA), you have indicated your willingness to listen to and
discuss retirees' concerns. We now, officially, would like to take
you up on your invitation in the hope that you can and will do
something to reduce the growing sense of frustration and injustice
within our membership.
There is a certain irony to this sense of dissatisfaction: While we
have managed in recent years to secure voice and vote in several
University of Windsor Faculty Association (WUFA) committees
(Executive, General Council and Contract), and equal
representation with WUFA on the D7 Joint Contract Committee,
we still have nothing in hand to show for it. WUFA is contractually
mandated to negotiate for us, while the D7 Committee is
mandated "to examine the adequacy of the retirement benefits."
The reality, however, is that, in spite of these provisions, the
concerns of well over 300 retirees have not been heeded. This is
especially relevant to the 82 members (33% of retirees) in 2000
who were receiving less than $25,000 a year.
We believe that was made strikingly evident in the negotiated
disposition of pension excess in the 1998 and 2001 negotiated
Agreements (and even before that in the 1996-98 Agreement
whereby excess surplus was used to reduce pension plan
premiums). Quite simply, the retirees were never once consulted
in that whole processand yet, on these dates, we constituted
roughly one-third of the bona-fide members in the pension plan
fund.
Now, at this point, we hasten to affirm two points. First, the
University contracted with WUFA to negotiate the disposition of
any excess in 1993, and we applaud the Administration's wisdom
and fairness in that regard. At the same time, however, no
provision was ever made to include retirees in that part of
negotiations, and that non-inclusion goes back to 1996 when
surpluses were first used to pay pension premiums of all active
faculty.
Second, our position has always been that as bona-fide members
in the Pension Plan, the retirees should indeed have a meaningful
and proportionate say in major pension policy undertakings such
as surplus distribution. The fact that excess surplus derives from
the University's annual contributions to ensure minimum guarantee
projections does not mean that the University alone, or that the
Corporation and its active faculty should be the only ones to have
a say. On the contrary, the fact that surplus monies sat in and
multiplied within the Pension Plan says to us that all shareholders,
since we are all covered under MG protection, have a stake and
say in policies that govern the disposition of surplus monies.Third, WURA has always questioned the wisdom of using excess
surpluses to fund pension-premium holidays for both
Administration and active faculty. Using pension-plan surplus to
fund pension-premium holidays has always struck us as a betrayal
of the deeper purposes of the whole pension institution. As much
as is legally possible, surpluses would have been more wisely
applied to the development of reserve and buffer funds to
ameliorate the extremes of investment fluctuations. That, in effect,
was the case in earlier Agreements (1990, Letter X, p.109; 1993,
Letter X, p.127) which provided for a "Money Purchase Non-Reduction Guarantee" over a three year period [July 1, 1990 to
July 1, 1992], to be funded from a Contingency Reserve.
Unfortunately, that provision was dropped in the 1996 contract! In
the past few years, Money Purchase retirees have lost heavily (Up
to $7000 a year), losses that might have been ameliorated by a
well structured buffer fund.
In the meantime, there are active faculty, librarians (and "certain
others") who have been hired on at this University over the past
five years (or more?) who (1) have never yet paid anything from
their earnings into the pension fund, but (2) whose premiums
have been covered through an excess surplus that accrued
before they ever arrived here, and (3) who can export their
pension benefits should they leave the University's employ. That
strikes us as a policy that is as unbalanced as it is unfair to
retirees.
Surplus funds might also have been more wisely used to ensure
that all retirees could retire at the same rate of pension increase
(as is the case at Queen's University). While the Minimum
Guarantee is a blessing enjoyed by all retirees, there have been
years (during bull-market peaks) when Money Purchase retirees
received a considerably higher rate of annual increase; and this
has caused a profound sense of unhappiness among many of our
members.
There are further grievances growing out of the original surplus
distribution. Towards the end of 1998 negotiations, and only after
repeated representations and protest by WURA to the WUFA
principals, a letter of understanding was signed by the University
and WUFA negotiators which designated $1.59 million of excess
surplus as a Minimum Guarantee Contingency reserve. The intent
behind this last-minute provision was to reserve this many dollars
(out of a much larger surplus of about $25 million) to improve
Minimum Guarantee funding (at a time when Money Purchase
retirees were receiving greater rates of increase.) No specific
means or steps were ever specified; but it was our belief that an
amount had been set aside for then-current retirees.
In four and one-half years, we the retirees have never
received any accounting of the status of that fund. We have no
idea if it existed as a sequestered component of the pension fund
surplus, or if it continued on, folded in, as part of the Minimum
Guarantee Surplus fund. Recently, in our first report back from the
Trust Fund Committee, we have been told that, as $1.15 million,
it is now finding its way into the Trust Fund. We have received no
accounting, no explanation of the difference in amounts.
There is more to this particular fund. In our earlier discussions
with WUFA (and later in the D7 Committee), we had run into
repeated assertions about the difficulties and legal impossibilities
of transferring monies from the Minimum Contingency Reserve to
the retirees. In our rejoinders, we pointed out a number of real
instance, and counter-examples. One of our examples was using
surplus dollors to subsidize health benefits for retirees.
Additionally McMaster is distributing surplus to retirees with one
retiree reportedly getting a sum of $100,000!
| What's Inside
P 1. Spring General Meeting, President's Message P 5. Letter to President Ross Paul P 6. Letter to President Ross Paul |