Update on Union Pensions: Officers Funds Flush as Rank & File Suffer

Following our post below wherein we described the sorry state of union pensions, the following article was forwarded to us.

The Washington Examiner is reporting that:

Pension plans for union officers remain healthy and well-funded even as rising liabilities threaten to consume the savings of their rank and file counterparts who participate in different funds within the same labor organization, according to a Hudson Institute study.

This disparity became evident from a sample of the 21 largest union and staff pension plans from the same organizations. They are: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), UNITE-HERE, the United Steelworkers, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Plumbers and Pipefitters, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the Sheet Metal Workers and the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union.

“This issue of rank and file pension plans being funded less than the officer pension
plans is extraordinarily serious and shows a great moral failing on the part of the unions,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute who authored the study.

Read the entire article here.

Hat-tip to Bret Jacobson