Vote for resolution on IBM pensions
Letter to the Editor
I am writing to respectfully ask that all faculty, staff, students and alumni who hold stock in the IBM corporation carefully consider the IBM stockholder proxy votes you make in the coming days leading to the annual stockholder's meeting on April 25.
In the case of the IBM employees' resolution on retirement and retirement medical, I am asking that you vote all IBM stock held in favor of the resolution.
The entire text of the resolution can be found in the recent annual meeting notice which also outlines the board of director's election and other business to be held at the annual meeting. In summary, IBM decided to change the pension plan from the long-held traditional plan to a cash balance plan.
The net result to tens of thousands of IBMers was a drastic 30 to 50 percent cut in retirement benefits. The public outcry and resultant Senate hearings forced IBM to restore some benefits to a subset of employees in the hopes of quelling the criticism. However, IBM chose to use age as a criteria for determining who received and who did not receive benefits under the old plan. That age is 40.
Hundreds of Notre Dame alumni who graduated after 1981 are still severely affected by this change. For example, I started in 1983 and was fully vested in IBM's retirement plan in 1988. In mid-1999 I was removed from the old plan and placed into the cash balance plan for the simple reason that I was not quite 40 years-old. The personal cost to me was an approximate 40 percent loss in pension value. If I had been one year older and worked seven fewer years at IBM, I would have received my full pension.
This raiding of the pension plan was done at a time of record IBM earnings. In the early 1990s, when IBM still held respect for the individual high, the IBM pension fund was left untouched despite the fact the company was losing billions of dollars.
My story is not at all unusual, and in fact it is rather average. I sincerely hope that a Catholic university that prides itself on teaching Christian and moral values to its students and the community at large will carefully consider its vote on this issue and cast a vote in favor of the stockholder resolution.
John W. Goetz
Class of '83
March 27, 2000
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, March 29, 2000
