Dear colleagues:

I know you’ve been waiting for some word on the pension. At this point, the pension fund lawyer, who is independent, has read the proposed merger agreement and raised a number of questions and concerns. We are awaiting the response from the Company’s lawyers.

We need the lawyers to work out the final language before we can bring it to you. We hoped to do so by early next week. It may have to wait until after the holidays if we don’t get the language worked out soon. (The Dec. 31 deadline, it turns out, is not hard and fast.) We certainly won’t want to have a vote Christmas week, when many people are off.

You will have to be a member in good standing in order to vote. That means you can be no more than 30 days in arrears in your dues. Please make the effort to catch up now. We would like all our members to participate in this very important vote.

We’ll keep you posted when we have more information. We know the delay is frustrating.

After a contentious week of sharp disagreements publicly aired, Thursday marked a day of unity and recommitment to purpose for the Guild.

First, the Guild is pleased to announce that Ken Crowe and Christine Wright have agreed to remain on the pension board as trustees, and they concur the membership must vote before a merger of the fund can occur. They did so after a legal opinion from Guild International attorney Barbara Camens indicated the contract required such a membership vote.

You can read her opinion here.

A vote cannot be scheduled, however, until the Company puts its proposal in writing. It has not yet done so, and the union sent Company leaders a letter after its Executive Board meeting Thursday urging them to do so.

At the Executive Board meeting, the officers unanimously approved a statement of principles as suggested by International Representative Jim Schaufenbil. The principles were moved by Chief Steward Ray Pitlyk and seconded by President Tim O’Brien (who handed the chair to First Vice President Lindsay LaFountain in order to do so).

The principles are:

• Agreement of all board members that a ratification vote is legally required to merge the pension plan.
• The union and trustees agree to negotiate with the company to protect pension benefits as long as possible. That agreement needs to be in writing. We retain the right to negotiate pension benefit changes in the future through collective bargaining.
• That we would work together in settling our differences.
• The Executive Committee and the Guild pension trustees all acknowledge they are ultimately accountable to the membership.
• Executive Committee votes should be taken in a forum where all members have adequate notice and opportunity to present debate on the issues.
• The Executive Committee reaffirms its goal to get a reasonable, honorable contract with the Company.

The Guild’s Executive Board will meet at 5:30 p.m. today, and certainly the pension issue will be a top topic of discussion. International Representative Jim Schaufenbil is coming to the meeting to help the board members come together in a consensus.

As was mentioned at Tuesday’s membership meeting, the Executive Board meetings are always open to the members. They occur on the second Thursday of each month at the Guild’s office at the Albany Labor Temple, 890 Third St. in the city of Albany. Call 482-9218 if you need help with directions.

The Guild is still awaiting a written proposal from the Company on the proposed merger. Once that is received, it must be reviewed by counsel and final language agreed upon before it is sent to the membership for a vote. Normally it would take 15 days to call a membership meeting, but the Executive Board can  call an emergency meeting with two days’ notice.

The union leaders are working to put together a fact sheet on the issue for members to be distributed and posted to the Web site. The fact sheet will be reviewed at tonight’s board meeting so that all members have the chance to speak their piece on what should be included.

If the Guild pension plan is to be merged with the Company’s plan as proposed, it is an action that can only be taken by one group: the membership.

Section 14.C. of the contract, on page 32, states: “The Fund will be maintained in accordance with applicable law as a jointly administered trust fund…” This language remains in effect, and the Company made no proposal to alter it in our negotiations.

The only way that a merger can be approved is if it is negotiated with the union and a change to that language is ratified by the membership. You get to decide.

That was the legal advice provided by our counsel, Barbara Camens, after the meeting Wednesday. We are still awaiting a written proposal from the Company.

Ms. Camens made clear that the pension trustees would be in violation of the contract and the law if they voted to move the plan without a vote of the membership. Unfortunately, some of our trustees were poised to do just that. As a result, we made the heart-renching decision to remove two of them.

One of the two was told repeatedly that a vote of the membership should be done, and this person instead insisted this was an action that could be unilaterally taken by the trustees. That is not true and goes against the advice of our counsel, our contract language and the best interests of our membership.

Some have expressed the belief that this step was taken in order to prevent the merger from happening. This is not true. We are still awaiting the Company’s written proposal, we will review it with our attorneys and we will respond appropriately.

In the end, neither the Executive Board nor the trustees will make this decision. Only the membership has the authority to do it. It’s in your hands.

Guild pension trustees reached a conceptual agreement Wednesday with the Company to merge the union pension plan with a company one.

The decision was not an easy one to make. With the fund likely to face shortfalls of $1 million or more a year starting in 2011, the trustees had a choice between facing making cuts to the benefits or hoping that the move to the more solidly financed company plan would help retain benefits into the future.

The decision won’t be final into an agreement is reached on the exact language. The Guild has scheduled an informational meeting at 12:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 11, at the Colonie Town Library to discuss the decision with members.

The Company was willing to guarantee pension benefits only for the next two years, through Dec. 31, 2011.

“This was a difficult decision for the trustees to reach. We did it after much debate and consultation with Guild Local President Tim O’Brien and International officers and staff,” trustee Ken Crowe said. “Our goal has always been to preserve our pension benefits going forward.”

Under federal law, pension benefits earned to date, and under the agreement over the next two years, are protected and cannot be reduced.

“I want to thank the trustees for all their efforts,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “It is not easy to have to decide what  to do to best secure your colleagues’ pensions for as long as you can.”

Besides Crowe, the other trustees are Mark Corelli, Christine Wright and John Runfola. They were joined Wednesday by O’Brien, Chief Steward Ray Pitlyk and Melissa Nelson, collective bargaining director for the Guild International and a past Albany president and pension trustee.