Retirees Rally,
GE Pension Hike Follows
PITTSBURGH
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Erie GE retirees show their RAGE over the company’s
failure to improve pension benefits. |
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The hard work and perseverance of General Electric retirees and union
members in demanding a pension increase got results on April 17 when the
company announced that a pension hike, the first since November 1996, would go
into effect May 1.
GE’s announcement came just days after a series of retiree
demonstrations, backed by active GE workers and the various unions in the
Coordinated Bargaining Committee. The retirees’ rallies received extensive
publicity.
In Erie, Pa., more than 200 members of the UE-sponsored Retirees
Association of General Electric (RAGE) turned out for an April 12 plant-gate
demonstration where they were joined by a large turnout of stewards and
officers of UE Locals 506 and 618.
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CHARLIE FRY
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DAVE ADAMS
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BETSY POTTER
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They were addressed by RAGE Chairman Charlie Fry, UE-GE Conference
Board Sec. Steve Tormey, Local 506 Pres. Dave Adams and Local
618 Pres. Betsy Potter.
That GE retirees don’t have an automatic pension cost-of-living
adjustment is "a damn shame," declared Fry. "Those who made the
company No. 1 are treated like second-class citizens."
GE'S BOTTOM LINE
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STEVE TORMEY
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Tormey pointed out that the company hasn’t contributed to the pension
fund since 1987 because it is over-funded, but GE retirees haven’t had a
cost-of-living increase since 1996. He reminded the retirees and union members
that GE reports income from its pension fund as earnings to boost its bottom
line.
Local Pres. Adams said retirees’ needs would be forcefully raised at the
bargaining table. National negotiations between UE and GE begin May 30.
The rally was extensively covered by the Erie Morning News and local
television and radio stations.
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UE Local 924 retirees from Decatur, Ind. join IUE Local 901
retirees and members outside the Fort Wayne GE plant. |
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On April 11, UE Local 924 retirees from Decatur, Ind. joined with workers
retired from the Fort Wayne plant and members of IUE Local 901 for a rally at
the plant gate. The event was covered by three TV stations and the Fort Wayne Journal
Gazette.
GE retirees also rallied in more than a dozen communities, including Lynn,
Mass., and Schenectady, N.Y., where retiree activist Helen Quirini, a
former UE member, was the subject of an extensive profile in the Albany Times-Union.
GE retirees continued to take the company to task for inadequate pensions
and the lack of a pension COLA at the GE stockholders’ meeting April 26 in
Richmond, Va.
THOSE AFFECTED
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Erie retirees picket
the April 26 GE stockholders’ meeting in Richmond, Va., where they
called for an automatic cost-of-living increase in their pensions and
backed a union proposal to require shareholder approval for pension or
benefit increases for outside directors. (GE directors receive a pension
of $75,000 a year for five years’ service.) Dir. of Org. Bob Kingsley
and retired District 2 Pres. Phil Mamber are pictured with the Erie
retirees. |
According to GE, the increase effective May 1 will affect more than 134,000
GE retirees, with the greatest amounts going to those who have been retired
the longest. The annual increase will range from $10 to $60 times years of
service depending on the date of retirement. In addition, the minimum
multiplier is increased to $18 times years of service, up from as low as
$10.50. This is in line with UE Genl. Pres. John Hovis’s call last
December for a substantial increase in the minimum.
On the other hand, most retirees who separated from the company prior to
retirement with less than 25 years’ service will not benefit from the raise.
For many of these vestees, their departure from GE was involuntary, the result
of plant closings and sales and transfers of work. Those who left the company
after June 1997 also will not receive anything.
"We’re growing, we’re going to make a difference," says
Charlie Fry of RAGE. "We have to keep mobilizing, we have to keep the
pressure on."
UE News - 05/00
