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Toronto—Police, fire, municipal and school board retirees, who are members of the OMERS (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System), are urging Premier Ernie Eves to personally intervene in OMERS autonomy and governance negotiations now underway with the government.

They are concerned that the unaccountable OMERS board and the un-elected OMERS bureaucrats have scuttled negotiations between employers and employee groups and are cutting a deal with the government that compromises the interests of pensioners and the future stability of the pension fund.

The retirees, whose unions and associations have formed The Coalition for OMERS Pension Fairness, are holding a media conference tomorrow, Tuesday, April 23 at 11:00 a.m. in the Queen’s Park media studio.

They will highlight how recent recommendations for autonomy and governance of the plan made by the OMERS board to the government will hurt the majority of plan members and they will announce the launch of a campaign that includes targeting the Premier in the coming by-election and aggressive lobbying of MPPs.

Sid Ryan, the Ontario president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) –the union that represents the majority of OMERS members - and Earl Manners, the president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), will join the retirees at the media conference tomorrow.

The Municipal Retirees’ Organization Ontario (MROO), and the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) are also members of The Coalition for OMERS Pension Fairness.

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For more information please contact:
Sid Ryan, President CUPE Ontario
(416) 209-0066
Stella Yeadon, CUPE Communications
(416) 578-8774