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Retirees Rally,
GE Pension Hike Follows

PITTSBURGH

Erie GE retirees show their RAGE over the company’s failure to improve pension benefits.

Erie GE retirees show their RAGE over the company’s failure to improve pension benefits.

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.

CHARLIE FRY DAVE ADAMS BETSY POTTER

CHARLIE FRY

DAVE ADAMS

BETSY POTTER

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

STEVE TORMEY

STEVE TORMEY

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.

UE Local 924 retirees from Decatur, Ind. join IUE Local 901 retirees and members

UE Local 924 retirees from Decatur, Ind. join IUE Local 901 retirees and members outside the Fort Wayne GE plant.

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

Erie retirees picket the April 26 GE stockholders’ meeting in Richmond, Va.

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


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