MODENA – Retired tractor-trailer driver Norman Ostrander holds two letters in his hand from his pension fund.
One, dated Jan. 3, 2008, says his monthly pension benefit of $3,078 is payable to him for the remainder of his life.
The second, dated Dec. 2, 2015, says that starting Feb. 1, 2016, his monthly benefit will be reduced to $1,846.80.
“They said all along that there were problems,” Ostrander said last week at his home in Modena. “But a pension is supposed to be for life. People plan on living on that money.”
Ostrander, 67, retired from YRC Freight in Maybrook in 2004. He spent much of his career doing overnight runs to Ohio and Maine, as well as local deliveries that would see him home the same day.
A work assignment system based on seniority led him to retire.
“I didn’t have to retire then, but some of the guys weren’t working every day,” Ostrander said. “I figured, why not give the other guys a chance. 'Live and let live,' I say.”
He said he sought other employment, including driving a school bus, but was told by his union that it could jeopardize his pension.
So Ostrander and his wife, Sharon, a former emergency medical technician for Modena Fire & Rescue, spent their time landscaping around the modular home where they raised two daughters. The 17.5 acres, dubbed Peaceful Meadows, resembles a golf course. The Ostranders remember when it was overgrown and thick with thorny bushes.
Ostrander’s union, Road Carriers Local 707, and its pension fund administrator did not respond to a reporter’s telephone calls and email. YRC Worldwide, formerly known as Yellow Freight, reduced its pension contributions in recent years. The company’s pension obligation to retirees and workers was underfunded by $10 billion, Chief Financial Officer Jamie Pierson told CFO magazine last year. YRC referred a reporter’s questions to the pension fund.
The YRC terminal in Maybrook has employed about 425 union and non-union workers in recent years, and employed many more in busier times for the less-than-a-truckload hauler.
Kevin McCaffrey, identified on the union’s website as the interim pension fund manager, told Newsday last year that the pension fund was damaged in Wall Street’s financial crisis. McCaffrey also blamed the declining number of unionized trucking companies. That reduced the number of workers contributing to the fund.
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