Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

@2qhu+1s2tYprf

“ Much ado about nothing.”

Says the entitled, company troll!

Much ado about nothing.

At least we have all had the opportunity to build considerable personal savings as a backup while employed at T.

What does most of these comments have to do with AT&T and others de-risking their liability and not being a fiduciary for their employees as mandated in ERISA. Why is Athene willing to pay T so much to get the pension liability? Things that make you go, hmmmm, I wonder?

Could they be making risky investments, charging higher admin fees, marketing or trying to sell other products to older retirees, etc.. They have designs with the big pot of money and captive retirees they purchased and being a fiduciary probably isn't high on that list.

@1saw+1s2tYprf

You’re a taker as much as everyone else you complain about!!

Just relax and live life and let others do the same. We all have a short time to live on this big rock.

Love,

Skippy

Ha!! I just looked up that $83M PBGC bailout. It was in 2021. You all throw Biden under the bus but, if your pension needed help from the PBGC, Biden just saved your quality of life during retirement.

No parties policies are perfect but ease up on all the crud you sling.

@2hrr is spot on.

Hey you whining pensioners, get off the government t33t already or stop complaining when the government helps someone other than you.

You folks just love to delude yourselves and believe you all just carry forward with no government help or support in any way but will b1tch and moan when help doesn’t come your way. Get over yourselves already.

The PBGC may be considered “self funded”, BUT……here goes. It gets friggin bailed out by taxpayer money. Just be intellectually honest with yourselves.

“The American Rescue Plan provides an $83 billion taxpayer bailout of the most severely underfunded private, multiemployer pensions.”

1. the pensions wouldn't fail if they were REQUIRED to be fully funded when offered, nor is the PBGC funded with taxpayer dollars, and
2. the only generation that didn't fund their social security payments was the first one
   that got it, and they're all dead now.

Try again skippy.

For the record, anyone who hasn't saved enough on their own, pension or not, that they can't live without the pittance social security provides, is a fool, especially if they are afforded a 401k plan with company matches.

It is so nice to know the insurance company AT&T selected to manage our pension is as sleazy as they get being involved with Epstein. Not only that, Athene ratings are very mediocre.

I also second the commenter that said if you have lump sump option, take it. Then if you want certain monthly payments for you and your loved one, go to a insurance company with excellent ratings that you choose. Or put money in ten year treasury notes. OR better yet put it in an index fund. Any thing is better than AT&T move your money to some recently created insurance company that has weak ratings. It is so sad to see how desperate Stankey is.

For those who would like the facts, PBGC isn’t funded by tax-payer dollars

From Investopedia:

How the PBGC Is Funded

While the PBGC is a federal agency, it is not funded with tax dollars. Instead, it is funded by premiums collected from defined-benefit plan sponsors, assets from defined-benefit plans for which it serves as trustee, recoveries in bankruptcy from former plan sponsors, and earnings from its invested assets.

The flat-rate, per-participant annual premium for single-employer plans in 2021 is $86. For multiemployer plans, it is $31.

That previous poster was correct. You only make arguments in your interest (and you conveniently leave out important point).

Your pension may have been earned but you all took the risk of working for a private firm. That pension can be impacted by economic conditions or choices by the private firm’s leadership (whether you agree with them or not).

Why should my generation’s taxes continue to bail out failed pensions which I’ll never get or keep your social security payments high while mine will likely get materially decreased.

So it’s only ok if it works for you.

That had to be one of the most poorly written articles I've read in a long time. The author might be wh-z bang in economics, but they need a remedial English class.

As far as student loan forgiveness. Prior generations had to pay off their own debts, so should future generations. We shouldn't have to pay theirs too. No one is forced to go to college. Plenty of good vocational schools that are way cheaper than an academic degree, with jobs that are way less prone to outsourcing and layoffs. If my kids were still college age, that's the way I'd nudge them.

Pensions were something earned for long time employment and were funded by the employer, not a hand out by the government. Sorry, not sorry. They were required to be funded at a certain level. Companies should not be allowed to unload these obligations. Most of them have terminated defined plans years ago.

Make no mistake about who the ghoulish Ms Ghilarducci is. She'll destroy everyone's retirement if she can, because we all didn't bring enough chewing gum for everyone in the class.

No idea why she has become for some the reliable voice of pension reform.

If she's for it I'm against it.

Evil persona our CEO is. My plan is to escape soon with institutional knowledge they will then no longer have.

@1iou+1s2tYprf has good points.

A few other points regarding the insanity of broadly forgiving student loans:

• those who took student loans were not forced to do so and agreed to repay the loans
• those of us who opted to cash flow our education and our children's education don't want to also pay for your education
• Other than buying votes, why would the government forgive student loans and continue to provide student loans?
• Let us pray for the US government to enact policies and laws that encourage personal responsibility.

“There is no law; only unilateral action by a President which has been ruled as an overstep of executive authority by the Supreme Court.”

I appreciate your perspective but it is not the full story. While the Supreme Court did block Biden’s broader student loan forgiveness program, Biden used the Department of Education's existing authority to establish another legal route to forgive student debt for over 3 million loans.

Of course additional legal action can be taken to challenge this claimed Department of Education authority or this will be solved at the ballot box and mixed in with lots of other voter concerns.

I still stand by my main point / opinion that many who don’t support governmental help change their tune when they need help themselves.

I’ll get off my soapbox now since this is a layoff forum.

"So it’s not OK for the government to payoff student loans for those that may need the help (and very few if any of those folks will likely get any pension) but it is OK for the government to have a decades old program to subsidize failed private company pension plans." "Tell me why this is not total hypocrisy" .

I will tell you why, and provide sufficient and correct reasoning why it is not. Of course, there are other doctrines by which people feel it's not hypocrisy as there are matters of fairness to be debated, but there's a rock solid reason which cannot be refuted.

You can debate politics all you want to, but what you can't debate is the law. ERISA as voted into law after being enacted by the 93rd US Congressional Congress, and signed into law by President Ford. The PBGC was established as part of enforcement of the law.

Like all laws, the ERISA act was voted into law by Congress, which has the power of the purse. Contrast that to what President Biden is doing with student laws. There is no law; only unilateral action by a President which has been ruled as an overstep of executive authority by the Supreme Court. So to say that this is hypocrisy is simply denying facts. You may feel that student loan forgiveness is "the right thing to do", but it is NOT a law and has NOT been enacted, and the President has instead decided to take actions which are not constitutional.

So it’s not OK for the government to payoff student loans for those that may need the help (and very few if any of those folks will likely get any pension) but it is OK for the government to have a decades old program to subsidize failed private company pension plans.

Tell me why this isn’t total hypocrisy.

Seems like many of you are only supportive of any government help if it applies to you or your loved ones.

BTW, I’m ok with both of these especially if you need the help.

The PBGC is low on funds for back-stopping defaulted company liabilities but does Joe care? NO! He is busy trying to payoff loans for college students who volunteered and signed for their debt, with tax payer’s (your) money. Quid pro quo, money for votes.

I went to college and nobody payed for my loan debt and I didn’t expect it either, it was “my debt”. When students quit or greatly reduce attending college then those high prices will plummet, it’s called supply and demand. There is a huge shortage in the “Trades” which pay very well and much better in a lot of cases than, getting a traditional college degree.

Their next move will be to stop pension lump sums, the insurance lobbyists for companies like Athene, along with corporations will be pushing for congressional and senate representatives to pass a bill. It’s all about the $$, not being a fiduciary.

Yet again the Union is stepping in the gap for all employee’s rights for both, non-bargained and bargained, by filing a lawsuit. You are welcome!

I'm a manager, not a D9 member. Great article.

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@ozn+1s2tYprf

Nailed it!

The moral of this story -- take a lump pension if you can and don't look back. Corporate America, especially AT&T, does not have your best interest in mind.

Leadership will continue their layoff, increasing scope of work, reducing or eliminating benefits plan. They can cook the books until, they can’t, Stankey can only make all these reductions for so long before the boat sinks.

Yet another benefit at risk or lost because of poor business decisions that drive this behavior. No consequences for the elite!