Retirement Security Lost
Union Employees Benefits Cut By 95%
UNITE HERE claims to look out for the interest of other companies’ workers – but before it can do that, it should stop stealing its own staff employees’ retirement benefits.
In court testimony, a UNITE HERE official recently said “we have an obligation to the folks who have worked for us who are now retired. So we have an obligation to pay their retirement benefits, their health insurance, their life insurance, things that we feel is important to pay people after they have achieved their work in life.”
But in 2003, 145 retired staff employees of UNITE sued the union for slashing their life insurance benefits. The union officials had promised generous life insurance benefits to offset relatively low wages for decades of service -- but UNITE’s leaders cut those benefits so low one woman said they were “not even enough to pay for my funeral.”
Overall, the union employees said their benefits were reduced by 95 percent. These employees include:
- Gus Tyler’s life insurance benefit was reduced from $150,000 to $5,000
- Max Zimny’s benefit was cut from $321,000 to $5,000
- Irwin Solomon’s benefit was cut from $293,000 to $5,000
- Mary Ruggiero’s benefit was cut from $83,000 to $5,000
All told this lawsuit could cost members $75 million!