The Oregon state employee., January 01, 1945, Page 26, Image 26

24
Secure Old Age
(Continued from, page 6)
the war Ezra N." Hudgins of Norco,
La., former carpenter for Shell, retired
on an $86 monthly pension, plus $17,-
700 from Shell’s Provident Fund.
In, addition to retirement benefits;
Shell workers are thoroughly protected
in sickness. Shell’s total benefit plans
cost I Close to $10,000,000 annually —
and company executives say they’re
.worth.every penny of it.
The Bell System telephone com­
panies', including Western Electric and
Bell Telephone Laboratories, provide
liberal and comprehensive benefits with­
out cpst to the Worker. In cases of ill­
ness, for instance, the Bell companies
grant one month’s full pay and nine
week’s half pay to employes who have
beep bn the payroll two years;'thé pay­
ments are s t è p p e d up; Recording to
length of employment, and if a 25-
year employé is sick for a year he draws
a full year’s salary. The companies
provide not only pensions but death
benefits as well, ranging from four
months’ I pay after two years’, employ­
ment to a year’s salary after ten years
of service. Du Pont has a similar p en-.
sion plan, as well as free health insur­
ance.
One of the most unusual social se-(
çurity programs, both in . scope and
liberality, Was instituted not long ago
by Schenley Distillers. Schenley’s pen­
sion plan, provided without cost to the
employe, aims at assuring even $1500-
a-year workers a minimum retirement
income of $1200 after 30 years, with
proportionate payments to workers with
shorter periods of service. À 6 5-year-
old married employe, for example, who
has averaged $1500 a year for 30 years
gets $56.50 monthly from Social Se­
curity and $47 from the company— a
total of $1242 annually. W ith the same
years of% service a $2200-a-year worker
will get'roughly about $1600.
The’ company also provides health
and hospitalization insurance for the
employe and his dependents. The life-
insurance program—with the company
contributing the bulk of each' premium
—provides more insurance for younger
eihployës, where family needs are great­
est, and less for older workers.* A $2000-
a-year worker entering the plan at 3 5
would have a death benefit of $5000,
while a new 50-year-old worker, also
averaging. $2000 a year, would get only
a $2.500 policy.
Equally important— and contrary to
most group life-insurance plans—-thé
employe who leaves the company can
'exchange his insurance certificate for
ànÿ cash which has been accumulated;
obtain paid-up insurance pr an ordinary
life policy, or convert his policy into
an annuity.
"W hat We’ve dône is xto concentrate
on the actual needs of the lower-salaried
worker,” Lewis- S. Roseristiel, b o a r d
chairman j of Schenley, says. "We set*'
aside funds for the depreciation of ma­
chinery—why shouldn’t we take care
of the depreciation of men?”
Pensions make it possible for workers
to experience the full enjoyment of
their later years. Pensioners are pursuing
hobbies or operating small businesses
which interest theiri. "A pension isn’t
a death knell, but. a new lease on life,”
one pensioner told me. ' "Financial se­
curity .-and a good rest have actually
made me feel ten years younger.”
The swelling tide of workers’’ Social
security is a most significant develop­
ment, a long step in the right direction.
Workers’ benefits sponsored by employ­
ers demonstrate that American business
is rapidly awakening to its responsibility
— and its opportunity.
— Natio-n-’s Business, Nov. 1944