ABF | Pension

The union has nothing to do with pension funds. I got everything I had coming. If you can't survive two months without a check, you can't afford to retire
Never said I was going to fully retire, I just hate working for the Company I am employed by. Its time to move on, I just want to get all the monies I have coming to me. Holding back pension for 1 or more months just seems wrong. I bet when Hoffa Jr. Moved on, He did'nt have to wait for his money
 
If I want to retire June 30th, The Union Hall tells me I wont get a Pension check until August 1st. This doesnt sound right to me...
the pension has a 1 month waiting period for early retirees to insure that you are fully retired before releasing your pension payments, if I remember correctly. This is to protect the seniority roster from subtrafuge, ie, retiring and returning to work with your seniority intact. You can return to work as a casual if the company agrees, but you are under strict hours of service per month rules until you reach 65. Violate the strict hrs/month rule and you lose your check for that month. Ask me how I know that. After 65, you can retire and keep working with your seniority as the pension must allow you to retire regardless after 65. We had 1 driver do exactly that. I retired at 62 and found out that the insurance premium for the retirees was escalating so fast it was killing me, so ABF allowed me to come back and work enough as a casual to get my Teamster insurance/ pension package paid for myself and my wife until we both hit medicare, for which I was profoundly grateful. They saved me many thousands of dollars in insurance premiums. Also, if you work 750/hrs or more per year, your pension will increase by about $60.00/month per 750 hr increment payable immediately. I was able to add about $550.00 /month doing that. Plan carefully if you go early. ABF saved my bacon, and I will always be grateful for that. If the TM asks if you want him to leave your employee info in the computer, say yes, don't burn any bridges just in case. They had to completely rehire me, including the check-ride. The safety man had to come to Ontario from Portland to do that. We both got a chuckle out of that. We took a set of triples up the freeway to the first off ramp and turned around and went back. This was in the western conference fund. Yours might be different, so ask. BTW: The retiree insurance premiums went from about 200.00/month to almost 550.00 month so quick it gave me a nosebleed. I asked them why, and she said" Well, we have a small pool of retirees in the plan and 4 of them hit their million/ dollar limit this year, so everyone has to pay more." Like I said, PLAN CAREFULLY!
 
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Also, as a retired road driver casual under the hours rule for suspension of benefits, you have to be very careful not to get trapped out on the road on a multiple dispatch roll -on -rest that will take you into violation before you can get home again. You can advise dispatch of your problem, but it is up to them if they send you home. They were always considerate of my situation even though they needed me badly to move a load. There are a HELL of a lot worse companies to work for. As a casual, I killed 1 elk and 1 deer that damaged the tractors. The preceeding 25+ years I killed none. Murphy's Law.. Most companies would quit calling you. ABF just said don't worry about it. I had to become a casual to fully appreciate all of that. Just sayin...
 
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And to those who might be saying "that won't happen to me!" Let me just say I hope not. Aside from the insurance premium issue for myself and my wife ( primary for me for 3 years and 5 years for her) I found out a couple of things about re-employing in the industry with my previous teamster work history that really limited what I could do without losing my pension benefit. The first was that I submitted a request for review of employment to the pension and it took them 5 weeks or so to get back to me on a decision. By then the jobs were gone anyway. The second was that I could really only work for Walmart as a driver without suspension ( private non union carrier hauling their own product) They were willing to hire me, but I didn't want to work that much anymore. I discovered to my humility and chagrin that ABF was in fact a perfect fit for what I needed and wanted to do. I could work as much as I wanted, within the hrs restrictions, and I was comfortable with the job. Once my ego adjusted to going from #2 on the seniority roster to being a last-man-out at midnight bottom-feeder, I was fine. Yes ABF still hired full time drivers in Ontario as the need arose. Ontario was in a unique position as an end of line terminal serving W. coast terminals in Ore and Wash and when time-keepers came thru, they needed someone they could call who was rested and available and be put on that load as soon as it hit the yard when the board was exhausted or hung up in Portland doing turns, and they needed to make delivery and not lose the revenue. It worked out well for both me and ABF. In fact, others that retired early did the same thing once they saw how well it was working for me. With the multiple dispatches, I only needed to get out about 2 or 3 times a month with turns out of Portland or Seattle to get my insurance paid. My biggest problem was watching my suspension hours. I think that getting away from the 6 day 70hr/ a week grind when I did is the reason I am still alive and healthy at 75. I don't know...
 
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Never said I was going to fully retire, I just hate working for the Company I am employed by. Its time to move on, I just want to get all the monies I have coming to me. Holding back pension for 1 or more months just seems wrong. I bet when Hoffa Jr. Moved on, He did'nt have to wait for his money
Actually, those people have about 6 fully vested pension funds that they draw from courtesy of all of us, and no, they don't have to wait.... It's like George Carlin said " it's a big club, and you ain't in it...." Oh, and it doesn't end with their death like ours. It is more like a 401k if I remember right.
 
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What doesn't sound right?
Your employer pays you for June. The pension fund pays you for July. It can't be any faster than that.
I retired with time in two different funds. I got all the money I had coming but it took three months to get my first checks.
That's because the union was checking with their lawyers to see if they could find a loophole to beat you out of it, RB. Did that first check have any tear stains on it from Hoffa while he was signing it? OK, I'm sorry....
 
Blade, I don't know what funds you are in, but all I can tell you is my experience with CSPF. I just checked my file, and my official quit date was Nov 26th, the check I got from CSPF was dated Dec 14th. This tells me that the check I got in December was retroactive back to Dec 1st
(my retirement date), and my benefit payment for December. Than two weeks later, the 1st of January, I received another check and every month since. So what this tells me is that I do get paid in advance. If what you say is true, then why did I receive a check in the middle of December? Less than three weeks after I resigned.
I think, if I remember correctly, that the 1 month wait to confirm severance of employment is retroactive to your retirement date, so you do get a retroactive check later. What screwed me up when I went back to work a couple of months later as a casual was I was calculating my hours to stay under my allowable hours to avoid suspension of benefits under the old rules, and neither I nor the pension office knew they had changed the calculation formula under the new contract that had just passed and I found out that I was over hours for 2 months! That was a $7,700 hit that I had to pay back! I learned that from payroll in Ft Smith. So I did, and I wrote a letter of protest to the pension office explaining what happened and that the pension office wasn't even aware of it until I told them. They said they were sorry, but I was hosed, so to speak. And then on April 15 th of the following year I get a letter in the mail informing me that the pension administrator had reviewed my case and agreed with me and they would refund my pension money plus interest, which was like 400.00. But don't make that mistake again. I never did. But it took me a week to get the smile off my face...
 
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