It takes 10 years, yes ten, to walk away from Trimet with a pension if your a union employee.
But it only takes 3 YEARS , that's right, THREE YEARS,(in fairness to accuracy readers should the review comments) to walk away with a pension if your a non union employee!
The employee is vested in the account after three years of service.
http://tinyurl.com/7gl4gaa
Non union employees can choose between ODS and Kaiser for dental. No Willamette Dental for them like the union employees have.
Non union employees get 6 personal paid days off along with the the 6 paid major holidays. Union employees get 3 paid floating holidays and their birthday off.
Vacations are accrued from the date of hire for non union employees. Union employees lose all of their vacation time and start back at zero when they go from part time to full time status
14 comments:
That's not fair!If that is the case,that should be used as a bargaining chip.
A couple of other things I noticed:
Non union employees can choose between ODS and Kaiser for dental. No Willamette Dental for them like the union employees have.
Non union employees get 6 personal paid days off along with the the 6 paid major holidays. Union employees get 3 paid floating holidays and their birthday off.
Vacations are accrued from the date of hire for non union employees. Union employees lose all of their vacation time and start back at zero when they go from part time to full time status.
One clarification, Union employees also are paid for the 6 major holidays too. Of course many are required to work those holidays until they gain enough seniority to get those days off if they desire. (And yes, they are paid at time and a half when they work a holiday)
I have a question for you all to work on. If TriMet is "Borrowing $63 million against future operating budgets for PMLR", How much of the current operations budget is going to other light rail debt of lines already open that did the same thing? How can TriMet claim "little money is going into PMLR from TriMets budgets" when in fact it is, later, when they will have less money to operate services, which as we can see comes at the cost of bus riders.
I don't have all of the numbers, but don't forget TriMet also sold their rail cars to raise cash in the past and now are leasing them back.
And it's the employees who are creating the financial woes?
Chad, I don't have the spreadsheet at hand, but according to some numbers TriMet sent me before the Orange Line bond authority vote, past LR projects didn't rely as much on local general funds. The Green may have, but if so I think it's the only one.
Also, good catches, Al.
BTW, isn't a defined-contribution plan like the non-union folks' a lot different than a defined-benefit plan like the union folks'?
Can you expand on the difference in pension plans?
My understanding is that with a pension (defined benefit) plan, retirees are guaranteed a monthly payment, while a 401(k) (or similar defined contribution) plan, retirees are only guaranteed the money in their account.
In other words, I think the defined contribution plan limits and defines the employer's monetary liability.
401(k)
(this is the standard for the private sector)
You decide how much money to put in pre-tax, and it's invested in stocks & bonds that you (roughly) select. The employer usually offers some sort of match -- ex: "we'll chip-in an extra 50% of the first $5000 that you contribute per year"). Then when it's retirement time you can withdraw from this account whenever you like (in whatever amount), but you have to pay taxes on whatever you withdraw. If you didn't save enough (or the market tanked just before you retire), then you're screwed.
pension
(slowly fading away from the public sector)
Like social security - you get a monthly check of set amount depending on your seniority / age / etc.
Anybody know what goes on in Western Europe/Canada?
BTW: "vesting" in terms of a 401(k) means whether or not you get to keep the employer match.
For perspective, my employer's 401(k) looks like this:
- vest in 5 years
- company matches 50% of the first 6% of your income.
Example:
Your income is $50K and you set aside 6% ($3,000) pre-tax per year. The company then contributes $1,500 extra to your retirement account. The total $4,500 gets invested according to the plan you set.
At retirement you get whatever your account is worth. You can withdraw it as slowly or as quickly as you want. Whatever is left in the account when you die becomes part of your estate.
Most people feel that a pension is a better plan; which is why businesses (and now parts of the public sector) are eliminating them.
Sorry, just read the original post (duh). Non-union employees work like this:
- Each year you're employed TriMet sets aside 8% of your salary in a retirement account.
- You decide how this gets invested
- When you retire, you get to withdraw whatever the account is now worth
- If you didn't stay 3 years, then you don't get the full 8% (maybe get nothing?)
This is not really a pension -- it's more like a stock account. I think of a pension as being "you get $X per month until you die". This is more like "We're giving you $X per month while you're employed to invest in stocks/bonds/etc for your retirement."
... ok I think that's beat to death enough. haha ;-)
Al, your comment that it only takes three years to walk away with a pension if you're a non union employee is incorrect and misleading. As MAX says above, it is just that you become vested to the employer's contribution to what is really just a retirement savings account with various investment options.
Josh C.
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