September 16: Your Pension and Benefits Bargaining Committee met with the employers’ committee on September 1. YOur committee reports positive progress in negotiations. The two committees intend to meet again on September 27 and have two more negotiating meetings scheduled for October.
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Negotiations look for solutions
August 17 Over the summer, the Pensions and Benefits Committee (which represents both employees and employers in the Regina Civic Pension Plan) met to develop joint solutions and changes to the pension plan to ensure its long-term financial health.
The group met on July 22 and July 29 and agreed to a number of items, including a decision to provide joint communications updates about these meetings. To read the first joint newsletter issued on August 17, click here. The group expects to meet regularly through the summer and fall.
Employers propose “discussion” dates
Union groups in the plan – and now the Superintendent of Pensions – want the parties to return to the bargaining table to find a negotiated solution to make the plan affordable for the long-term.
The five employers have refused to agree to bargaining dates since last December, stating they’ll only meet to discuss their proposals to gut the plan, not the unions’ proposals to fix it.
Although seven months have passed, their position does not appear to have changed.
This week, the city’s manager of corporate services sent a letter to the chair of the employees’ benefit committee, proposing a series of dates in July and August to “discuss” pension plan proposals.
In the June 22 letter, Brent Sjoberg says the employers “discussion team” wants to identify a process and schedule “for further discussion around potential Plan changes.”
Sjoberg, writing for the five employers, uses the word “discussion” 10 times in the two page letter. The words “negotiations” and “bargaining” do not appear once.
Towards the end of the letter, Sjoberg states: “As Employers, we continue to remain open to variations on the proposals that we have put forward. . .”
Lawyer writes follow-up letter to superintendent
Susan Philpott, the lawyer hired by the union groups in the pension plan, sent a follow-up letter to Superintendent Dave Wild commenting on his decision not to take immediate regulatory action.
“In our experience it is unique that a person charged with the duty and authority to ensure regulatory compliance by this Pension Plan, and pension plans in the province generally – the Superintendent of Pensions – is not concerned by an employer expressly refusing to comply with applicable law,” she said in her June 21 letter to the superintendent.
Philpott, a lawyer with Koskie Minsky law firm in Toronto, also expressed concern about the superintendent’s decision to refrain from issuing an order, while the bargaining parties negotiate a solution. As she noted in her letter, “the employer has not yet agreed to negotiate any terms” and no bargaining dates are set.
Click Superintendent Ltr June 21 11 to read her entire letter.
The superintendent’s response: the silver lining
Last week, the Superintendent of Pensions Dave Wild refused our legal counsel’s request to take regulatory action to compel the employers to comply with the Pension Benefits Act. That’s disappointing.
But Kevin Skerrett, a CUPE National representative specializing in pensions, says there are several positive aspects to the superintendent’s response. As Skerrett writes in this blog post:
“First, plan employers have been claiming the pension plan is in “crisis”. They have used this argument to justify their proposals to terminate the defined benefit plan for newly hired young workers and to significantly reduce future benefits for current employees. They have even raised the possibility that the Superintendent of Pensions might take steps to terminate the pension plan altogether, clearly aiming to scare plan members into accepting proposals for deep cuts and a “two-tier” pension.
Yet in his June 13 letter explaining his decision not to act, the superintendent states: “In my view there is no imminent risk to the accrued benefits of the Plan that requires immediate regulatory action.”
Clearly, the superintendent shares the unions’ view that the plan, while in need of more funding and an adjustment to current benefits, is not at any immediate risk. Members should appreciate this reassurance, Skerrett states.
Read more of Kevin Skerrett’s comments here.
Defined benefits key issue in Air Canada dispute
Senior executives at Air Canada enjoy a gold-plated defined pension plan, but they want to gut defined pension benefits for employeees, a decision that led to the recent strike.
“Air Canada clearly had enough money to give its senior executives very large raises in compensation. But it doesn’t seem to have enough money to handle its pension obligations which are contractually guaranteed,” stated Queen’s business professor Doug Reid on the CBC radio program, The House, on June 18.
“Defined benefit pensions are a form of deferred compensation,” said Reid. “You remove the uncertainty about people’s future and in return they will take a little less play today. That makes sense.”
Listen to the entire interview under “Labour Politics” on The House here with Doug Reid and Jim Stanford from the Canadian Auto Workers.
What about the second opinion?
Getting a second opinion hasn’t been easy.
Employee groups in the civic pension plan hired independent actuary Clare Pitcher last fall to crunch the numbers and provide a second opinion about the plan’s funding position. Pitcher, who is based in Toronto, has extensive experience working with defined pension benefits.
The employee groups wanted Pitcher’s expert opinion to guide their bargaining discussions about plan changes.
But obtaining the second opinion has proved to be difficult. To complete his valuation, Pitcher requires current information about the plan’s investment returns, salary costs, the ages of plan members and so on. The plan’s administrative board refuses to share the data.
Now, the union groups think they may have found another way to achieve their goal. They recently requested the Administrative Board ask the plan’s actuary to “cost” our proposals for pension plan changes. The board agreed.
The information is expected any time now.
Superintendent responds
Superintendent Dave Wild has responded to our lawyer’s letter of May 27. (See below.)
Superintendent Dave Wild said he would not direct participating employers in the plan to remit the higher contribution rates. “I do not share your sense of urgency and am not inclined to take immediate regulatory action,” he said in his June 13 letter to our lawyer Susan Philpott of Koskie Minsky law firm.
The Superintentendent has the power to order plan employers to implement the new contribution rates recommended by the plan’s actuary. But Mr. Wild said he felt “no imminent risk to the accrued benefits of the Plan” and thought “the best means of resolving differences is through bargaining.”
Read Mr. Wild’s letter here.
Unions file pension grievances
Six unions have filed grievances against their employers for trying to undermine the Regina Civic Pension Plan by refusing to make the required contribution rate increases.
Regina City Council voted last month to reject the contribution rate increase recommended by the plan’s actuary – a decision that violates the Pension Benefits Act and its collective agreements with CUPE locals and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU). The Regina Qu’Appelle Health Region and other employers followed suit.
CUPE, ATU and the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses filed grievances challenging the employers’ actions.
The grievance filed by workers at the Regina Public Library (CUPE 1594) is at the first step in the process. CUPE 3697 (which represents health care providers at the Regina General Hospital) referred its grievance to arbitration after the health region refused to hear it.
A hearing on Monday will consider the grievances filed by the three CUPE civic locals.
Superintendent of pensions must act
The lawyer for CUPE and the employees’ benefits committee sent a letter to Superintendent Dave Wild requesting he order the plan employers to comply with the actuary’s recommendation to increase contribution rates to the pension plan. Until the successful conclusion of negotiations, “an immediate Order of the Superintendent is necessary to bring the Plan into compliance with the Pension Benefits Act,” Susan Philpott said in the letter. Letter to Superintendent May 27 2011
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