Several GENMO members have asked us whether by participating in the class action against GMCL they will face retribution from GMCL and/or will be on the hook for legal costs if they stayed in the lawsuit as a Class Member. The answer to both questions is no.
We do not believe that GMCL would penalize Class Members. There are more than 3,000 Class Members and there is strength in numbers. There have been very few cases where defendants have tried to penalize members and, where that has happened, the Court has quickly and decisively intervened to stop that from happening.
Secondly, you will not be responsible for any fees or costs. As stated in the Court-approved Notice of Certification of Class Proceeding "The members of the class, other than Mr. O'Neill, will NOT be responsible for any legal costs of the class action lawsuit and will NOT have any other financial obligations because of the class action lawsuit".
Lynn McCullough
GENMO Legal Director
January 6, 2012 GMCL statement of Defence is now posted under class action submenu.
Over 3000 GMCL salaried retirees and surviving spouses.
We are a not-for-profit organization, formed to protect our pensions and benefits.
We are funded only by our membership dues. Our workers are unpaid volunteers.
Our activities to date include:
1) Initiating a class action lawsuit to force GMCL to restore our benefits.
2) Working directly with politicians at the provincial level, to advocate improvements to Ontario pension legislation, specifically to make pension status more transparent,
fully funded, and evaluated annually.
3) Working directly with politicians at the federal level, to advocate changes to
federal bankruptcy legislation, to improve the position of pensions to a more
secure position among creditors in CCAA.
4) GENMO is an active member of the Canadian Federation of Pensioners.
165,000 members total. CFP continues to advocate improvements to both provincial pension legislation, and federal bankruptcy legislation, to make our futures more secure.
November 21, 2011 Benefits: Class Action
As a GENMO member you are aware of the progress made to date; an order was made by the court certifying this proceeding as a class proceeding. Your financial support of GENMO in turn has allowed GENMO to support Joe O'Neill as the class representative and fund the associated legal costs.
If you are a member of the class as defined by the court, you will soon receive documentation in the mail detailing the facts of the case, as well as a letter from Joe O'Neill asking you to consider making a contribution toward our legal fees by sending a cheque to our lawyers in trust. This documentation is going out to all class members, not just GENMO members.
Please note that your contribution toward legal fees does not replace GENMO. GENMO will continue to advocate for you as a GM Canada salaried retiree addressing both pension and benefit issues.
Your GENMO membership dues will continue to be the primary financial resource for the ongoing court case.
If you wish to contribute to our legal fees in addition to your GENMO membership, please do so; every dollar helps. But remember that GENMO continues to need your support and membership to champion your interests. Together, we have made considerable progress.
GENMO Executive
November 21, 2011 Canadian Federation Of Pensioners letter on Priorities
October 22, 2011 Class action - First Step Successful
There are two steps in a class action. First, the representative plaintiff must prove that there is a group of people with claims involving common issues and have it certified by the courts. Second, the plaintiff must prove in court that his case has merit and seek damages.
Joe O'Neill, our representative plaintiff who's seeking to restore benefits arbitrarily removed by GMCL, won step one for us in court this week. On October 20, 2011 Justice G. R. Strathy certified that the proceeding was a Class Proceeding on behalf of (a) all salaried and executive retirees of GMCL who retired from GMCL between January 1, 1995 and October 20, 2011 PLUS (b) all surviving spouses and dependent children beneficiaries of any deceased persons described in (a).
A timetable has been established with GMCL to get us quickly to the Discovery step. Communications with class members is a key component. Please view the certification order, on our web site, under ‘Class Action Status'.
We still must prove the merits of our case; however, we remain quite optimistic.
GENMO Executive
September 24, 2011 Senior Poverty
Ontario Provincial Election
With the "baby boom" generation retiring in great numbers, Canada is about to experience an increase in senior poverty due to:
1) Inadequate CPP and OAS payments,
2) Declining RRSP investments,
3) Underfunded defined benefit pensions and
4) A large segment of the population (working poor) who never had the resources to invest.
Stats Can has recently announced that 60% of Canadians are unable to save enough for an adequate income when they retire.
If your party forms the next government, will you:
1) Work with the other provinces and the Federal Government to amend the CPP to increase pension benefits; a simple fix that will not cost the taxpayer a dime.
2) Amend the Ontario Pension Benefits Act to a) provide adequate funding (SOLVENCY), b) provide annual valuations (FREQUENCY) c) provide pension plan member involvement (TRANSPARENCY) as per the six recommendations of the Canadian Federation of Pensioners (see attached).
By 2031 Statistics Canada states that for every retired person, there will be three people in the workforce. Without proper planning now, programs to keep seniors out of poverty will be unsustainable.
If we keep defined benefit pensions solvent, we can focus on the other major problems of the seniors in poverty.
The requested amendments to the PBA should be at no cost to the taxpayer and will go a long way in bringing Canadian pension laws in line with most of the developed world and help to eradicate senior poverty.
September 24, 2011 Seniors need pension reform
Our GMCL pensions and benefits are precarious to say the least. GENMO is seeking a legal solution to our dwindling benefits; the same ones that were promised to you while you were working. Your US counterparts lose everything at age 65 with the exception of a $10,000 life insurance policy.
Pension protection is more political. There is an Ontario Provincial election going on now. If you are actively involved, read on and ask the candidates who will support pension reform to improve SOLVENCY, FREQUENCY and TRANSPARENCY for your pension.
Pensions and senior poverty don't even seem to be on any political party's radar.
No one is going to help us except us.
September 24, 2011 Canadian Federation of Pensioners' letter
Ontario Provincial Election Issues
See legend at the bottom for acronyms
The Canadian Federation of Pensioners, representing over 165,000 members of defined-benefit pension plans, has identified questions of critical importance to seniors and pensioners in the upcoming Ontario election. The CFP has been an active participant in the national and provincial pension reform process, and is a strong advocate for reforms that will improve pensioner security. We have been invited to present our views and concerns to Bay Street law firms and FSCO conferences alike.
Regrettably, Ontario pension laws and regulations lag behind Canadian pension regulation practices, and this situation must be rectified. Ontario is the registration jurisdiction of the bulk of Canada's pension plans, and other jurisdictions often model their approach on Ontario's framework. We have prepared the following questions for candidates and parties in the 2011 Ontario Provincial Election, on behalf of all CFP pensioners and survivors.
1. Will you and your party amend the Ontario PBA to make it mandatory to evaluate all DB plans annually on a going-concern and solvency basis, and to file such valuations with FSCO within 6 months of the valuation date?
2. Will your party amend the Ontario PBA to require that whenever indexing is included as a feature of a plan that it be included in any and all valuations of that plan?
3. Will your party amend Ontario pension regulations to require DB pension funds to have a funding target of 105% of liabilities?
4. Will your party amend Ontario pension regulations to require that any shortfall below the 105% target be corrected promptly, beginning no more than 3 months after the required valuation filing?
5. Will your party amend Ontario pension regulations to require that any shortfall special payment amortization periods be based on a sliding scale, allowing no more than 1 year for each 5% increment of deficit, to a maximum of 5 years for deficits of 25% or more?
6. If your party forms the next government of Ontario, will it amend the regulation of the PBA to enable Pension Advisory Committees to represent and inform pensioners of the status of their DB pension plans? These PACs must be unencumbered in their ability to contact all plan members and provide regular plan status.
CFP Canadian Federation of Pensioners
PBA, Pension Benefits Act
FSCO Financial Services Commission Ontario
PAC Pension Advisory Committee
DP Defined Pension
CPP Canadian Pension Plan
OAS Old Age Pension
RRSP Registered Retirement Savings Plan
September 3, 2011 Pension committee report Aug 31, 2011
Attendees: David Courtney-Pension Plan Administrator, Garry Marnoch, Lynn McCullough
We reviewed our pension plan fund performance for the second quarter of 2011.
The first quarter investment results were good, meeting the overall benchmark return, although our salaried retiree benefit payments and plan expenses exceeded the investment returns. In the next five years or so we will be nearing the maximum benefit payment levels. To nearly hold funding levels with these high benefit payments is good. We have a closed class in our pension plan as employees hired from 2007 and onward are in a separate defined contribution plan.
The individual funds had mixed results with less than half meeting their benchmarks. The overall performance was propped up by one fund which did exceptionally well. GM and their Asset Manager continue to evaluate the performance of the fund managers and make changes as necessary. Their investment strategy (ie. active versus passive) is being reviewed.
The performance of our equity funds was not stellar for this quarter but was quite good year to date. The affect of the recent downturn in the stock market will be certainly felt for the 3rd quarter unless there is a major improvement in the next month.
We discussed the next actuarial valuation which is scheduled for September 1, 2011. The current retreat in equities markets around the world will have consequences for this one day snapshot of our plan's performance. Fortunately the markets are rebounding. These results will not be available until late May, 2012 as allowed by FSCO regulations.
August 26, 2011 Updated Factum and Statement of Claim
Updates are posted under "Class Action Status" as of Aug 26.
Please note these are very large files and will take some time to download.
The class action for Joe O'Neill vs GMCL is progressing quite well. The affidavits for both parties were completed several months ago while the cross examinations were completed in July. The next steps are Certification Factums, basically statements of each party's position for or against certifying this law suit as a class action. Joe's statement is due on August19, 2011 while GMCL's statement is due on September 16. The plaintiff's reply to GMCL's Factum is due on September 30. We remain very optimistic. The lawsuit is to recover benefits for all retired salaried employees, including executives, plus surviving spouses and dependent children of deceased retirees.
On October 17, 18, 19, 2011 both parties will meet in court where the judge will hear the arguments. He would apparently make a decision within the following two or three months on the certification motion.
As a matter of interest, in 2009, GMCL sued the CAW retirees. According to a recent handout from Lenczner Slaght Royce Smith Griffin LLP, "GMCL has sued all of its retirees as a group (a class Action). GMCL did this by suing several individual retirees as "representative" of all GMCL retirees. In legal terms, they are called the "Representative Defendants". In this lawsuit, GMCL has asked the Court to make an order that it has no obligation to provide any Health Care Benefits to its Retirees." The above mentioned law firm represents the Representative Defendants. Note that this is for hourly retirees, not salaried retirees. The next important date for this CAW retirees class action is a court hearing in Toronto on August 24th.
If you wish to examine further details on this case involving CAW retirees, they're available at http://www.gmclhctsettlement.ca/
Wewill be following this very closely.
Your GENMO Executive
July 6, 2011 Easy to read chart comparing year to year pension status
Under "Pension" submenu, "GMCL Pension Status" tab, the chart is published
Invitation_to_2011_AGM.pdf [110.55K]
