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(St. John’s) – A presentation by a so-called ‘pension specialist’ to the St. John’s Board of Trade today will only serve to spread misinformation and inaccuracies about public sector pensions.

That charge comes today from CUPE NL President Wayne Lucas who says, “Bill Tufts is an anti-pension person who’s persistently high on rhetoric and short on substance.

“The $37,000 figure that he is using as the pension income of an ‘average public sector worker retiring this year’ is so far off the mark, it calls his credibility into question. To reach that mark a Public Sector Pension Plan (PSPP) member would need to have more than 40 years of service at a final salary of $61,000 a year. This is next to impossible,” explains Lucas.

Says Lucas, “Most don’t work full careers and many have lower earnings. If Mr. Tufts had done his homework, he would know that the average pension being paid by the PSPP is currently $17,500. That’s a whopping $20,000 less than he claims.”

Lucas says, “I’d like to ask all of the folks attending that expensive Board of Trade luncheon today, if they know how much Defined Benefit (DB) pensions save NL taxpayers in social and income support programs for seniors at all levels of government?

“Do they know how much consumer spending in NL is the result of those decent DB pensions and what the economy would look like without the investment capital of DB plans, which are the second biggest source of capital in Canada after banks,” he asks.

“CUPE and other unions are fighting to expand the CPP on behalf of all workers. That is an infinitely more productive approach than attacking public pension plans,” says Lucas.

 For information:

Wayne Lucas     
President, CUPE Newfoundland & Labrador   
(709) 727-2509 (m) 
    
John McCracken
CUPE Communications Representative
(902) 455-4180 (o)