Tag: pensions

How to Create Effective Employment Offer Letters

Good news! During these times of challenging recruitment, a viable applicant seems interested in your business. What’s the next step to set the hook? A job offer letter serves many purposes. It should enhance the candidate’s interest in the opening and protect your company against claims that it misrepresented the employment opportunity. The letter also […]

Ruling Helps Employers Ending Union Pension Funding

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers Michigan employers) recently issued a long-awaited decision about the appropriateness of interest rate assumptions used by union pension funds to calculate withdrawal liability. The court affirmed a district court’s opinion holding the Ohio Operating Engineers Pension Fund’s use of the “Segal Blend” violated the Employee Retirement […]

Defined benefit retirement plan

Almost a Third of Defined Benefit Plans Have 95% Funding, Making Buyouts, Risk Transfers ‘Feasible,’ Study Finds

Approximately 30% of U.S. defined benefit (DB) pension plans currently have a funded status of 95% or higher, making a full buyout or significant risk transfer transaction a “feasible option” for a growing number of plans since the start of the year, according to a recent analysis by RiskFirst, a financial technology company that works […]

Ex Gratia Payments in Pension Plan Allowed

By Lyne Duhaime On June 21, 2011, in Canadian Jewish Congress v. Polger, the Court of Appeal of Quebec overturned a decision of the Superior Court that had ordered an employer to pay millions of dollars in pension benefits based only on an alleged practice and without proper written documentation to that effect. The pension […]

Do Your Benefit Plans Violate the ADEA?

by Stephen Stine We aren’t getting any younger, and neither are your employees. As a result, employers are increasingly having to confront age-related issues that may lead to legal liability. These issues arise not only in the context of hiring and firing decisions but also in the design of benefit plans. To ensure your benefit […]

Reducing Pension Costs in Canada During Hard Times

The recent decline in financial markets has caused Canadian pension plans to become significantly underfunded. For instance, in Québec close to 97 percent of all defined benefit pension plans are currently underfunded. As this continues, many employers may look for ways to reduce pension costs or at least offset increases of those costs. Such losses […]

While America Aged by Roger Lowenstein

HR Hero Line editor Wendi Watts reviews the book While America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, and Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis by Roger Lowenstein. She argues that this book is particularly relevant and important in light of the current economic crisis and how […]

Generation Gap: Perspective key to dealing with generational divide

Here’s something you’ve probably never heard (or said): “Man, those kids in the younger generation really have their noses to the grindstone; they work much harder than we ever did.” Fact is, there always has been a divide between generations. Each generation clashes and reacts to the one before it. Consider this analogy: The Internet […]