Teamsters Face Pension Meltdown

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

4/6/13

 

 

 

More than 200,000 retired Teamsters are now facing serious problems with their pensions. Central States Fund, a Teamsters pension plan founded by former union head Jimmy Hoffa, is only 60 percent funded and is now in “critical” status, as the WSJ reports. Despite efforts to make up the difference with big bets in the stock market, the fund is now so deep in the hole that it appears unlikely to earn enough returns to pull itself out:

 

(Snip)

 

These problems will sound familiar to anyone who has been following the travails of public pension plans in states like Illinois and California. Making matters worse, a number of companies are pulling their employees out of this plan and into other, better-financed Teamsters-run plans. This is good for the workers who manage to jump off this sinking ship, but it will make it even more difficult for the fund to remain solvent in the future. If that happens, retired union workers could take a Cyprus-like haircut as their benefits are slashed to the bone.

 

Workers in defined-benefit funds around the country (including many state-run plans) should take note. If the Central States Fund pensioners had been in defined-contribution plans, they would now be much better off.

[Valin]

Via Meadia: Union Pensions Running out of Money, Fast

4/11/13

 

The number of insolvent union pension plans is steadily increasing, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) estimates that the number of insolvent funds will double by 2017. If these estimates are accurate, the PBGC itself could run out of money within 15 years, and much sooner if two particularly large troubled funds become insolvent.

 

Needless to say, this spells trouble for anyone whose retirement money is locked up in these plans. Fund managers and the PBGC are beginning to think seriously about how to deal with this. Any solutions they come up with are likely to be painful for current and future pensioners:

 

(Snip)

 

In other words, pensioners will likely be forced to accept serious cuts to their benefits if both their plans and the insurance funds run out of money. As pension funds fall like dominoes, one point has become increasingly clear: If you are counting on a defined-benefit plan for your retirement, you should begin to make other plans. Now.

[clearvision]

Union boss: Let me think.... any solutions, thinking, thinking..... wait I've got it, lets get the US Gov to bail us out whole.

[quantim]

Obama Motors has sold a lot of stock off lately, like six/tenths of a billion lately.

 

Taxpayers are still out $20 billion funding retirements of UAW hammerheads.

 

Stolen from the rightful owners, denied due process in courts, overrun by three branches of democrat gummint.

 

And this was years ago.

[SrWoodchuck]

Obama Motors has sold a lot of stock off lately, like six/tenths of a billion lately.

 

Taxpayers are still out $20 billion funding retirements of UAW hammerheads.

 

Stolen from the rightful owners, denied due process in courts, overrun by three branches of democrat gummint.

 

And this was years ago.

 

I hear that they're "Re-Volting!"