PAGE 2 | January 18, 2019 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
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To restore their pension, Plasterers reduce benefits
By Don McIntosh
Ten years after system-wide bank
fraud led to a market meltdown,
the 2008 financial crisis is still
claiming new victims. On Dec.
31, the Plasterers Local 82 Pen-
sion Plan finalized plans to cut
benefits 22 to 31 percent for its
roughly 250 current and future re-
tirees — in order to prevent the
pension plan itself from running
out of money altogether in 2034.
“It was terrible to have to make
that decision,” said Kent Sickles,
who is the business manager of
Portland-based Local 82 and a
trustee on the plan. “A pension is
a promise you make.”
But the alternative was even
worse, Sickles said. At meetings
attended by active and retired
members and their spouses and
children, Sickles laid out what
would happen if the pension plan
ran out of money: The federal
pension insurer known as the
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corpo-
ration (PBGC) would step in, but
would pay just a small fraction of
the promised benefits … and
that’s if the PBGC itself remains
solvent. Currently the PBGC it-
self is projected to run out of
funds by about 2024. To put that
into real numbers, a retired plas-
terer currently getting a $2,619 a
month pension will get $1,807 a
Within the Operative Plasterers and
Cement Masons International Asso-
ciation (OPCMIA), plasterers are mas-
ters of a variety of specialized trades.
They install fireproofing in high-
rises. They restore ornamental mold-
ings in historic buildings. They apply
interior finishes like Venetian plaster
and plaster veneer, and stucco and
other types of exterior cladding. It’s
a good living: At Local 82, wages are
$35.79 an hour, and combine with
health, vacation, and retirement
benefits for a total package of
$52.37 an hour. But it’s also physi-
cally demanding work. After years
of pressing their trowels against the
wall, members are ready for a well-
deserved retirement. That’s where
the Plasterers Local 82 Pension Plan
comes in. At a time when traditional
pensions are becoming increasingly
rare, Local 82’s pension — even with
the newly approved cuts — remains
a considerable benefit.
month after the cut; but without
the cut, he would have gotten just
$965 a month from the PBGC 15
years from now.
The financial troubles of the
Plasterers Local 82 Pension Plan
didn’t stem from anything the
plan’s union and employer
trustees did wrong. As recently as
2008, the plan was considered
100 percent funded. [To be 100
percent funded means a trust has
all the assets it needs to be able to
pay promised benefits in the fu-
ture.] In fact, the plan’s invest-
ments had been doing so well that
it was considered “over-funded”
in the late 1990s. When pension
plan liabilities are more than 100
percent funded, federal pension
rules require them to increase the
promised benefits, like subsidized
early retirement. That’s what the
Plasterers Local 82 Pension Plan
did.
Then the 2008 crash came, and
wiped out a third of the value of
the plan’s assets. The plans’s
funded percentage fell from 100
percent in 2008 to 68 percent in
2009. And that’s not all: The fi-
nancial collapse also set off a re-
cession, stopping construction
projects cold. Plasterers were
thrown out of work, and that
meant their employers weren’t
contributing as much to the pen-
sion plan just when the plan
Turn to Page 3
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