- Credits
- 543
Consolidated Freightways went out of business on Labor Day, September 2, 2002. Since then, a former CF road driver (Mike Fleming) along with many other volunteers have sponsored an annual Motor Cargo/CF picnic/reunion held every September in Akron.
This year attendance was down to a little over 150 people. Many people have passed on, or are just not physically able to make the annual event any more. My sister and I did manage to get my 94 year old Dad (Bob Smith in the red sweatshirt and red CF ball cap) to this year's event. He always enjoys getting to see his old Motor Cargo and CF cronies at the reunion. My Dad was a supervisor for Motor Cargo/CF from 1953 to 1983 when he retired at the age of 62. He then went on to a second career at the A/C Credit Union which he and other CF employees founded in 1964. He worked at the credit union from 1983 to 1991 full time, and part time from 1991 to 2000 when he finally fully retired at the age of 79. He's gets his CF Pension Plan check from the PBGC.
Most of the people in these pictures get their pension checks from the Teamsters Central States Pension Plan, and soon they will find out from Central States how much their proposed pension benefit reductions will be as the Fund submits their "rescue plan" to the Treasury Department. The Central States Pension Plan has a meeting scheduled for October 2, 2015 in Rosemont, Illinois for local union officers from across the 27 states that Central States covers. We are assuming they will be giving these local officers some details of the "rescue plan" they are submitting to the Treasury Department. We are also assuming that participants like me, and others in the pictures below, will also be getting our "benefit reduction letters" on or around October 2, 2015 with details on how we will be personally affected.
Since many of the former CF employees in the pictures below are being considered "orphans" by the Central States Pension Fund, these people are concerned about even deeper pension benefit reductions because they're considered "orphans" since CF went out of business without paying their withdrawal liability to the Fund. We still don't have a clear sense of "who" is an "orphan", and what the criteria for being an "orphan" really is. The Treasury Department, along with the Pension Master Kenneth Feinberg, will wrestle with those details when they get a first look at the Central States Pension Fund "rescue plan" in the coming weeks.
I just wanted to put some faces with the story, and put a human touch on the consequences of Congress passing the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 without the majority of members of Congress even reading the 161 page legislation, and attaching it to the Omnibus Spending Bill! Stay tuned for more details on this developing story in the coming weeks.
Thanks for your time as always!
Greg Smith
Norton, Ohio
Member, Northeast Ohio Committee to Protect Pensions (NOCPP)
This year attendance was down to a little over 150 people. Many people have passed on, or are just not physically able to make the annual event any more. My sister and I did manage to get my 94 year old Dad (Bob Smith in the red sweatshirt and red CF ball cap) to this year's event. He always enjoys getting to see his old Motor Cargo and CF cronies at the reunion. My Dad was a supervisor for Motor Cargo/CF from 1953 to 1983 when he retired at the age of 62. He then went on to a second career at the A/C Credit Union which he and other CF employees founded in 1964. He worked at the credit union from 1983 to 1991 full time, and part time from 1991 to 2000 when he finally fully retired at the age of 79. He's gets his CF Pension Plan check from the PBGC.
Most of the people in these pictures get their pension checks from the Teamsters Central States Pension Plan, and soon they will find out from Central States how much their proposed pension benefit reductions will be as the Fund submits their "rescue plan" to the Treasury Department. The Central States Pension Plan has a meeting scheduled for October 2, 2015 in Rosemont, Illinois for local union officers from across the 27 states that Central States covers. We are assuming they will be giving these local officers some details of the "rescue plan" they are submitting to the Treasury Department. We are also assuming that participants like me, and others in the pictures below, will also be getting our "benefit reduction letters" on or around October 2, 2015 with details on how we will be personally affected.
Since many of the former CF employees in the pictures below are being considered "orphans" by the Central States Pension Fund, these people are concerned about even deeper pension benefit reductions because they're considered "orphans" since CF went out of business without paying their withdrawal liability to the Fund. We still don't have a clear sense of "who" is an "orphan", and what the criteria for being an "orphan" really is. The Treasury Department, along with the Pension Master Kenneth Feinberg, will wrestle with those details when they get a first look at the Central States Pension Fund "rescue plan" in the coming weeks.
I just wanted to put some faces with the story, and put a human touch on the consequences of Congress passing the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 without the majority of members of Congress even reading the 161 page legislation, and attaching it to the Omnibus Spending Bill! Stay tuned for more details on this developing story in the coming weeks.
Thanks for your time as always!
Greg Smith
Norton, Ohio
Member, Northeast Ohio Committee to Protect Pensions (NOCPP)
