New article in the Washington Post:
For many Americans, 401(k) plans were supposed to be their own little golden parachutes into retirement.
Now, it seems, those parachutes may not open in time.
The global financial crisis that revealed the flaws of Wall Street has also exposed the vulnerability of America's retirement system. Employers have increasingly abandoned traditional pensions, forcing workers to rely on 401(k)s and similar plans that have a lot more exposure to the stock market. The assumption was that even if the market suffered short-term losses, over time it would rise, allowing workers to recoup their savings. But the steepness of this year's market collapse and the still-uncertain depth of the economic downturn has prompted lawmakers, academics and economists to question the wisdom of letting workers hitch their retirement fortunes to the precariousness of the stock market.
Read the entire article. It's unbelievable that Vought is STILL trying to say that it's a good thing they want to freeze the pension for everyone with 16 years or less and give us a 401(k) in it's place!
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11 comments:
I don't know why I'm shocked that Vought want's us to just lay down and accept this freeze on our penions... but I am! Maybye I just haven't been around long enough to grasp the concept that Vought is for Vought... I try to see the good in every situation,and there is just none here to see! Do they expect us to spend our whole lives in there working,and no way to ever retire? I don't want to have to ask my children,or grandchildren to help take care of me when the time comes that I can no longer work! Just like all of you I want to be self sufficient and be able to depend on my retirement to take care of myself,and maybe even help my children,and grandchildren when,and if they need it... So with this in mind,and all of the evidence that a 401k plan is not a depedable source for a retirement plan,We have got to stand strong together,and stay out that one day longer than the company wants us to!!! Keep all your brothers,and sisters in your thoughts,and prayers God Bless us all!!!
Vought Hanagement;
How long will your shaeholders put up with your childish and expensive experiment, in testing our (Striking Productive Rank and File) resolve! You need to hope that their (Carlisle Shareholders) pockets are deep, especialy in these uncerten financial times! We are a highly skilled and trained workfore, and fully able to turn your mistakes around, into a profit in a short time, as previously demonstrated after your illfated moving of work to Dallas! It seems, now that Boeing share holder have pressured their Management back to the table, that now is as good a time as it will get! Also it seems that the times of your most favored tax position, will now be at risk with the coming Democratic Addministratio in the wind! Can you hear it, it is the sound of CHANGE!
Skilled IAM 735 Worker
I've got a good idea !Get Randall to make another video and tell us how much his 401 is worth now! Also tell us how much of the value of it is his own money to start with !Don't be fooled people , he's lost his a--!We lost our a-- in 89 and you've lost yours in 08 with the 401K.Now try to sell something else to us besides a 401 because IT WON'T HAPPEN if hell boils over !!!!!!
Dan , after reviewing your video again ,it was like a BIG let down for you thanking us for being professional and then YOU turn around an allow contractors to cross that YOU already had lined up prior to the vote.IT takes time to work this out with Johnson services ,NOT A WEEKEND ! Then for you to set and try to shove the 401 down our throats and the market doing what it has done APPARENTLY, you need to to find you another place to work because it's obvious that we can NEVER TRUST YOU AGAIN!You've gotten very quite on that end since the vote,won't Dallas let you say anything ??? It appears to be a planned FORCED STRIKE and you knew it !!!!The leadership of this company is as big a mess as Wall Street if not bigger !!!
Does vought know that we have SO_CALLED scabs telling us what's really going on in there! Then we have SO-CALLED scabs taking pictures in there and showing us how bad IT REALLY IS and then we have REAL scabs !!! Will the real scabs stand up !Do they know they have NO UNION REPRESENTATION ! Your on your own SCAB !!!
Anon,
A SCAB is a SCAB, there are no SO-CALLED SCABS regardless of what information they are leaking to us They are still a F***ING SCAB!!!
(SO-CALLED or REAL) call them what ever you want,but at the end of the day... A SCAB is still a SCAB!!!!
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King Jr.,
2E • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2008
tell me again maxie how that 401k is the key to my retirement?
401(k) MATCHES MAY BE AT RISK.
GM to suspend contributions; others may, too
By Annys Shin
THE WASHINGTON POST
WASHINGTON — As if your 401(k) hadn't been through enough.
American workers,
forced to look on helplessly
as the value of their 401(k)s
sinks in sync with the Dow,
now have something else to
worry about. Last week,
General Motors told its
nonunion employees that
starting next month, it
would stop matching their
contributions to their 401(k)
plans until business condi
tions improve.
The move by the largest of the Detroit automakers reverberated well outside the auto industry. It raises the specter that the economic downturn and stock market turmoil could deal yet another blow to retirement savings at a time when employees are being squeezed by higher health-care costs or, worse, layoffs.
Twenty-one percent of the 248 employers recently surveyed by Watson Wyatt Worldwide, an Arlington, Va, consulting firm, said they had raised employee contributions for health care, and 25 percent said
they planned to do so in the next 12 months. Nineteen percent said they had laid off workers, and 26 percent said they planned to cut jobs in the next 12 months.
For now, suspending or reducing 401(k) contributions remains a last resort for troubled businesses. The Watson Wyatt survey found that 2 percent of employers had done so and 4 percent planned to in the next year. Others may consider it if their financial positions get worse.
It's happened before. Companies cut back on 401(k) contributions during downturns in the 1980s and '90s, and in the economic slump after the Sept. 11,2001, terrorist attacks. In 2001-03, companies such as Charles Schwab, an investment firm based in San Francisco; CMS Energy, an energy company based in Jackson, Mich.; and Goodyear Tire & Rubber, the world's largest tiremaker, based in Akron, Ohio, did so.
In many cases, they restored the matching payments within three years. Goodyear, an exception, plans to restore matches in January 2009, spokesman Scott Baughman said.
Let’s remember that the ones that don’t have retirement insurance were not working here in 89’. It’s easy to take something away from someone who doesn’t exist but as we see today, the company created a division within our membership 20 years ago that we really haven’t noticed until this contract.
The company is trying it again. There has been a lot of talk about a 2-tier system where we have some with a pension and a 401k and the other half who gets the 401k but their pension is frozen. There is little mention of the 3rd-tier. We need to remember the 3rd tier. These are the “people” who get no pension at all. All they get is the 401k.
It’s bad enough that they get no pension at all but another very important issue that seems to be overlooked is that leaving this group of Jr. workers, and the “unborn” out in the cold, will yet again create another division within the Union.
Not only do we all need to be in the same boat, but we all need to be rowing in the same direction.
I think there are 2 reasons why the company doesn’t want us to have the IAM Pension. And 2 reason why they want to phase out the company pension.
1. The company pension fund is used as a slush fund. Once it reaches a certain percentage, the company can rake the surplus off. That is money that should go to the workers and their families but instead it goes in to bonuses for upper management.
2. They know that the IAM Pension will strengthen the Union because if the union ever wanted to de-certify, it would have to give up the IAM Pension.
They want to phase out the company pension because:
1. They simply want to shift the risk on to the employees.
2. It cost a lot for the company to manage its own pension. If they could phase it out, eventually it would be money they could use for other things.
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