Challenger Motor Freight workers vote in the Teamsters

The pension was mis-managed and lost alot of money.This was a few years ago before the world credit crisis. Add to this the economic downturn, under funding with not enough workers or too many retirees?
One member company pulled their pension for RRP's and about a year later the largest member company delisted( is that a word?) and joined CAW.
Retiree's drawing their pension and zero money going in. I'm still many years away from my pension days, and doubt I'll see a penny?

My dislike of unions isn't based on the pension problem. More of a day to day dealing within a unionized shop.

 

A lot of companies pension plans went broke when the #### hit the financial fan.

Many plans were/are managed by investment houses and the money was put into "hedge funds"(Basically investing in investments.......purely speculative high risk investing.) and many hedge funds were propped up by mortgage backed securites(housing market/Banking money). The problem with hedge funds was that they entailed a certain amount of risk. The risk seemed low and managable due to the size of the funds and the prospective returns,which turned out to be false. The fees that went along with managing the fund were lucrative fo the investment houses and so the more money they moved,the more they collected fees for that money,even if the move lost money.

Through these massive moves of money,investment houses were actually able to manipulate the markets and reap massive dividends elsewhere,even if one fund lost millions of dollars. They used corparate pension funds which were worth billions to nudge markets in the directions they chose fit. When markets crashed it took the equity of most plans with it.

All pension funds should be regulated and kept seperate from companies that seek to exploit the cash reserves for financial gain. Pension fund money should not be allowed to enter into high risk speculative trading. The teachers of Ontario refused to allow their money to be put into hedgefunds and high risk trading and in turn the plan has done well in the downturned economy compared to other plans.

 

And the OTPF is worth billions. Very well managed fund.

 

I always heard that the teachers were one of the best managed pensions in the world.
Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) is another strong one.

 

Wouldn't it be nice if they were the ones looking after the government coffers instead of elected officials????

 

I was once a member of the teamsters union, hauling cars and making great coin. Union came in saved our competition and made our company close the doors. Good luck boys, hope you have better luck then we did.

 

The car haul has taken a beating over the last decade or so.
The contracts were weaker and weaker, companies closing up shop, non union getting a foothold. Plus the pension crap, and my personal distrust of the union people themselves.
It just isn't the same as it was back in the glory days.
I have family that hauled cars for over 30 years and I did it for 15 years.