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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16705 messages, Last post on Nov 25, 2009 at 6:56 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 03, 2009 9:07 am) That only effect those whom are yet to get on the plan. Those prior have rights to this pool of money (pension) and the administrator of such a plan have legal obligations. When the stock market goes south, so do the funds within these pension plans. Therefore, they might be deemed underfunded and GM has the responsibility to fund and or wait for market conditions to improve. I have no knowledge of that executive plan dissolving. Which would have been an option in better times. Just payoff the present value and let each person go off on their own. I bet the money managers (Wall St) wouldn't take kindly to such an idea, since they draw benefit/income from managing the pension fund. The GM pension is still funded even though the market is down. If it does drop more I guess it could become severely underfunded but it will go back up. But perhaps I am misinterpreting your statements which is easy to do. Are you saying you think there is still a pension continuing to accrue for execs at GM? I am confused now on where you were going. The fund is funded, now you want to just give the money to the employees and not wait for them to retire? Why would GM need to do this? Does it somehow save the company? Are you saying GM should stop the pension plan for the UAW members? Perhaps just turn over the money to the union reps? Or cash it out to the members themselves and tell them they are on their own for retirement? As of 11/24/08 G.M. appears to have enough money in the pension fund to pay its more than 400,000 retirees their benefits for many years — even with the markets swooning around it. That is largely because of the conservative way G.M. has managed the fund recently, and it explains why G.M. has not joined the long list of companies pressing Congress for pension relief. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/business/25auto.html
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 03, 2009 10:00 am) I think they (the UAW) claims that the education center is funded by interest from their strike fund. Where do we get that this is pension money? Fiduciary is a legal responsibility, and more than likely they are an independent third party. Surely your 401K plan isn't managed by your company and or union? this goes way back to the Teamsters. I don't want to besmirch them, but they have had lots to do about keeping a disinterested third party watching the pension funds. How can you say this fancy resort and golf course is an asset to the members? Its called summer family scholarships and anyone from any local can apply. About 10,000 members take advantage of this every year. I did and had no problem. Then I've been there during the winter for leadership education. Chaplin's have their week there. Editors have their week there too. It's not La Jolla, but it serves a purpose and the golf course was added later on. Then too I am aware they conduct business with the auto makers from there too. Its rustic and not what your thinking. The millionaire who owned the original lodge prior, let Lucy and Desi use it for their honeymoon. If you go there, don't expect some SPA type resort. Far from it. Its more like back to nature and closest thing I can compare it to is the YMCA of the Rockies, near Estes Park, Colorado. Which was not as expensive as your UAW exclusive resort. Your not even close. I've been to that posh resort and its geared to the leisure class/idle rich. So, please spare me this comparison.
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Replying to: 62vetteefp (Jan 03, 2009 10:14 am) Well, I am not quite sure what to say, or perhaps more accurately where to start, with regard to this article in the New York Times today on the surprising financial health - at least for now - of the GM pension plan. As the company otherwise founders, the article describes years of responsible, forward thinking stewardship of the pension plan’s funds, including with regard to investments of the plan’s assets. Obviously, as the article points out, with the company itself in grave danger of running out of money, that may not continue for too much longer, but GM’s handling of the pension plan to date is clearly commendable, particularly so in a world in which so many other businesses insist that they cannot possibly carry the risks and expenses of offering a defined benefit plan. But GM’s contrary experience raises more questions than it answers. Is it only a company with a gigantic financial footprint - like a GM - that can handle the long term financial investments and exposure needed to run a defined benefit plan? Or is a well thought out investment strategy and a corporate willingness to actually contribute the money needed to execute it all that is needed, such that other companies - many of whom have abandoned pension plans - could have pulled it off as well, had they been so inclined? Or, finally, does GM’s current predicament and the likelihood that, barring a turnaround of the company’s fortunes, its pension plan will be in trouble as well, show that defined benefit plans are simply impractical at best in modern American economic life, where - as the GM example shows - the length of pension commitments is not concomitant with the likely life span of the company that makes those commitments? http://www.bostonerisalaw.com/archives/cat-pensions.html
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Replying to: dallasdude1 (Jan 03, 2009 10:23 am) Who are those 9000 other guests that used the golf course? Probably guests of the UAW leadership if truth is known. Are you saying that does not contribute to the loss. I don't know of many golf courses that can be considered money makers. Does the UAW need a tax write-off? Less than 1% of the UAW members & retirees used the "training" facility last year. Not even 1/2 of one percent played golf on the course they support with their money. You have not made a good argument for owning the facility and especially the golf course. Gregg Shotwell, a UAW activist, is not troubled to learn that the education center is losing money. "When you are educating and training union members, that's the business of the union. That's never a loss," Shotwell said. But the golf course is a different story to Shotwell. "We should be running a union -- not a country club," he said. Both the resort and golf course are held by a UAW-controlled holding corporation called the Union Building Corp, which is a not-for-profit organization that holds real estate for the union, records show. The golf course is operated by a for-profit corporation called UBG Inc., which was set up for just that purpose, Labor Department records say. The education center, which reportedly has rooms to sleep 400 people, is operated by the for-profit UBE Inc. The union values the center at $27.3 million. UBE's management of the education center has generated revenue of about $30 million over the past five years -- and net losses of $20.5 million. The operations were hit hard last year by a $5.9-million payment to an employee pension fund. And from 2003 to 2007, revenue at the education center dropped by 18%. Looks to me like they borrowed from a pension fund to operate the resort.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 03, 2009 11:19 am)
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Replying to: explorerx4 (Jan 03, 2009 3:56 pm) 
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 03, 2009 11:19 am) You can't be serious? Perhaps you might suggest that they paid for it from the petty cash payola? There nothing, whatsoever, wrong and or below the table. Your thought process, makes me wonder if you were in Alaska too too long. This not a bridge to no where and a worthwhile undertaking by the UAW. I fully support the leadership. You have never been there. I have been there and think its great and their program is not any kind of indoctrination. They give you facts and both as group/individually you draw your own conclusions. Audits of both UBE and UBG by Clarence Johnson, a certified public accountant from Royal Oak, said UBE had a negative retained earning of $20.6 million and UBG had a $4.2-million negative retained earning at the end of 2007. The two entities had loans payable to the UAW International worth a total of $24 million. Aside from the loans, UAW International's financial statements show expenses to the UBE for several conferences and other activities. In 2007 alone, the UAW International paid UBE $3.3 million for services. Also, the union's executive board is authorized to transfer money to UBE "to help supplement the cost of education activities at the Family Education Center," a past financial statement to members said. The losses at Black Lake are small compared with the UAW International's overall budget, said Sean McAlinden, an economist and labor expert from the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. "That's not going to bother them for a while, but I bet it's something that they're working at." http://finance.google.com/group/google.finance.14194/browse_thread/thread/d07695- aaa9c498da |
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 03, 2009 4:25 pm)
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Replying to: explorerx4 (Jan 03, 2009 4:47 pm)
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I am retired from the UAW staff and live near the Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center on Black Lake in Northeast Michigan. You can find out about the Center by checking it out on the web.Building started in 1967 and Walter Reuther and his wife May died in a plane crash on a visit to the center in 1970. The public golf course at the Center was opened in 2000. The UAW pays all expenses for a week long education program for rank and file UAW members and their entire families. it has rooms for about 300 guests. Rank and file members apply for a scholarship to Black Lake through their local unions. The current financing mechanism is provided by the interest on the UAW strike fund. I frankly do not understand why anyone questions spending membership funds for a member's family to spend a week of vacation/training at a nice place like Black Lake. What is wrong with that or would you rather have the money spent on strike benefits or UAW staff salaries and benefits? I think these criticisms are generated by antipathy to unions or the working class generally. why should ordinary workers get to stay at a nice place and get a discount to play golf at a first class course? Would anyone even question this if an employer did the same for its salaried employees--as many do? The current worldwide economic difficulties of every auto manufacturer affects their unions but the UAW is not asking for a loan from the federal government to maintain union operations. To those that suggest that the property should be sold, you may want to know that the Michigan real estate market, particularly resort properties is down somewhat. But in any event, that is up to the UAW leadership and membership. I assure you that the appropriations for the building of the Center and its annual costs have been approved by the UAW membership at every UAW convention. The suggestion that pension funds are somehow diverted to pay for any Center operations is not only untrue but laughable. Members of the public are encouraged to play golf as it helps pay the expenses. I find it strange that some quarrel with that. It is a great course and might fetch an even higher fee per round if it was located on the western side of northern michigan where many more expensive courses are located.
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