NRPC townhall in Montreal on CTV

The NRPC held a townhall meeting in Lasalle on January 25th. It was reported on CTV Montreal news and a short story placed on the web.

There are a number of positive comments following the article which you can see at the URL shown at the bottom of this post.

Former Nortel employees fighting to save pensions

Nortel pensioners attend a meeting in LaSalle (Jan. 25, 2011)
Updated: Tue Jan. 25 2011 2:56:16 PM

ctvmontreal.ca

LASALLE — Some of Nortel's former employees met in LaSalle Tuesday, and they were not impressed with what they heard: many are likely to see their pensions be cut in half in the months to come.

Nortel filed for bankruptcy in January 2009, and pensioners and other ex-employees soon learned that they come toward the end of the long list of creditors.

Employees like Ken Lyons say they should be at the front.

"It is a most important issue and it's one thing, we've got all the opposition parties in agreement with us," said Lyons.

The company had already shortchanged its pension plan by about $2.5 billion because it was self-insured, and according to Canadian law, pensioners are considered unsecured creditors.

Funds from the pension plan were transferred to bonds when Nortel declared bankruptcy, and the bond market has not performed as well as the stock market.

Ever since the former employees have banded together and lobbied the federal government to change the law regarding pension plans and those for disabled employees.

However that now seems very unlikely, since last November the Conservative majority in the Senate's banking committee recommended against passing bill S-216, which would have permitted employees who were on long-term disability plans when Nortel went under to extend their benefits.

"We'll remember at election time," vowed Lyons.

3,500 former Nortel employees live in Quebec.

http://montreal.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110125/mtl_nortel_110125/20110125/?hub=MontrealHome