electrician vs IBEW LOCAL 332 PENSION TRUST A

Since the appeal should be heard this month it may be a good time to review what it is about. The appeal is about whether or not the Plan is responsible for the error that cost me court fees. The Plan has stated that they could do nothing about what happened. They claim that the state sends them a QDRO and that the plan must accept a QDRO approved by the state. The QDRO in question was written and qualified by the plan.

My appeal claims that the Plan has the final say. According to ERISA the Plan is the authority that decides whether a DRO (domestic relations order) is “qualified”. The plan represents the federal government and therefore must check the DRO to make sure it follows the Federal guidelines. The state has little or no interest in the federal side of the pension plan. Until the IBEW LOCAL 332 PENSION TRUST qualified the DRO it was not final and payments could not begin. The Plan should have used its federally mandated option of not qualifying the DRO.

Go to the benefits WEB site and you will see that the Plan has incorporated this procedure into the Plan rules. Therefore this procedure is required by ERISA and Plan rules. It is the plan that qualifies a DRO, never the state. It is the plan that determines the second DRO received by the plan is “coordinated” with the first QDRO to insure that the electrician does not get cheated. It is the plan that must check to make sure the ex-spouse is not receiving over payments. Overpayments in this case arise from excess credit for past service and averaging benefits from marital years with higher after marriage benefit years. The benefit payments are very specifically stated in the Plan Documents as occurring from the term of the marriage. And in the sample case sited by the Plan: Lehman v Lehman.

Come to find out judges are not like Electrical inspectors. Inspectors read the code and interpret on the spot. Judges want the law read to them and an interpretation furnished after the reading. Then the judge considers the presented facts and makes a decision. Don't go to court expecting the judge to know the law.

The appeals court should hear the case this month and provide the decision in January. If they allow the trial to continue it may be heard sometime next year.

Other stuff.

I went to the union meeting this week. I have to admit being in the majority of members who don’t participate. Therefore there is a lot I don’t understand at meetings. For one thing we received reports on the various committees and offices but nothing from the Pension Trustees. They are responsible for our $380 million dollar fund; it would be nice to know they had a meeting. There was some talk about trustees from the two sides (labor and management) being picky with each other. That was not in a committee report but in a thank-you to a retired trustee.

I think that next month the Business Manager will be reporting on the Health and Welfare part of our benefit plan. I hope he can get around to the communication part sometime. It is very frustrating to be refused a hearing by the very people who are supposed to be protecting my assets.

I also picked up a flier for the “332 Facebook Forum”. I think it is obviously a good thing for the membership to communicate with each other. But I could not get Facebook to work. I’m computer challenged and therefore suspect operator error on my part. My advise to anyone joining the forum: if you are writing about something that pissed you off, push the send button tomorrow.

Our Plan calls itself a "Defined Benefit Plan". If it were it would contain only one account for all participants. Others called "Defined Contribution" Plans have a separate account for each participant. No big deal, but our Plan has an individual account for each member.

“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save” Will Rogers

Happy trails