The Nortel Canada HWT fund covers a wide range of items including paying for the disabled benefits as well as insurance, medical,dental, etc for pensioners.
There has been quite a debate as to how the remaining funds should be distributed. The courts are saying that it should be allocated based on the percentages promised to both disabled and pensioners.
The disabled people have requested that all the fund should be applied to their benefits since the account is vastly under-funded and they need some income in order to survive. Most of the disabled people are not of pensionable age so these payments are the only ones they receive other than any government support which as you know is minimal.
If the entire HWT fund was split between the disabled people they would get about the same percentage of their current payments that pensioners are going to get when the pension trust fund is properly analysed by Morneau Sobeco.
Handing the contents of the HWT fund over to the disabled would not impact in any way the pension trust fund for retirees.
A poll has been established on the Yahoo Groups site for Nortel pensioners. You can go on there if you are a member and vote whether to award the HWT funds to the disabled or not. This is just a poll and has no immediate legal consequence.
Here is the message on Yahoo Groups:
I support that the disabled and survivors get the whole of the Health and
Welfare Trust. By agreeing to this I understand that I may be giving up a single
$3500 lump sum payment from the proceeds of the Health and Welfare Trust that
currently goes to pensioners. I also understand that this will allow the
disabled to get about the same percentage from the Nortel estate as the
pensioners. I understand that the Health and Welfare Trust proceeds in no way
impacts my pension coming from Morneau-Sobeco.
>
> o I agree that the disabled and the survivors should get the whole of the
Health and Welfare Trust
> o I do not agree that the disabled and survivors should get the whole of the
Health and Welfare Trust.
> o I have no opinion either way.
>>
> To vote, please visit the following web page:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Nortel_Pension/surveys?id=13054542
Friday, December 17, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Disabled requested that both Survivors and LTD be the ones to get their share of the funds, which are trust funds meant for this purpose. Health benefits and life insurance were pay as you go plans administered through the HWT and supposed to be paid from general revenue. CCAA court disregarding law on taking death benefits for pensioners from HWT trust funds. Thanks at least for caring about the disabled, and also the 2 Survivor groups who are so negatively impacted by this $43 million grab from HWT trust fund assets. It reduces income of both survivors and LTDers by about half of what they would be getting from the already underfunded HWT trust fund assets for these plans. It's poverty for us, as we have been saying all along.
ReplyDelete