Angels stop pensions

[Troll Daddy]

'Angels, Red Sox become first MLB teams to discontinue pension plans for non-uniformed employees'

'

"With the sport raking in $9 billion in annual revenues and clubs handing out eight-figure contracts to players like Halloween candy, “Why would we want to hurt the little guy?” Reinsdorf said at last week’s winter meetings. “My concern was that the people hurt the most would be older employees and mostly the scouts.”

Merry Christmas

LATimes.com

[mp170.6]

How much were the pensions worth?

[Troll Daddy]

Who needs scouts when you have saber metrics.

Older employees need to away for younger cost controlled employees.

[Tank]

i'd imagine there are some good reasons for why they chose to do this, but on the surface this looks like a really, really cheap move.

[Ohtaniland]

[ukyah]

plain and simple, i think that's a despicable move and i'm sorry to say i'm an angel fan at this moment. 9 billion dollars a year, players making 35 million dollars a year and they cancel the pensions for the lower paid employees, by contrast. symptomatic of today's corporate landscape. gross.

[Ohtaniland]

plain and simple, i think that's a despicable move and i'm sorry to say i'm an angel fan at this moment. 9 billion dollars a year, players making 35 million dollars a year and they cancel the pensions for the lower paid employees, by contrast. symptomatic of today's corporate landscape. gross.

 

Somebody has to pay for the stadium improvements. 

[laagamer]

[IEAngelsfan]

Granted, pensions in the private sector are going the way of the Dodo bird, but really, why do this?  I hope the employees have a 401k plan and the Angels are matching dollar for dollar up to a high percentage.

[Stradling]

Ok, who here has a pension? I certainly don't, but I do have a 401k and something else very similar. I do believe they should continue to give out pensions, but I highly doubt they are taking away pensions from people who already were hired and promised a pension. Do team really pay for on field pensions? I thought that would be covered by the league or the union.

[ettin]

Pensions are a long term drag on a company's profits. Especially in an environment where people are living a lot longer than they ever have in the past few decades. In fact they believe in the next two decades they will be able to extend peoples lifespans by several additional years or even more. They are starting to manufacture 3-D body parts so you can only imagine what it will look like 20 years from now. Long term pensions would eventually force a company into bankruptcy.

 

All that being said I really feel they should be matching like 10%-20% dollar for dollar on 401K's. They CAN afford to do that with all of the money coming in, especially the Angels that have no debt on their books. When I started working for my company they had just ended pensions. Many of the older employees were bitching but I will be literally facing the fact that I'll have to work until I'm 80 years old to establish a reasonable retirement for my family.

Edited December 23, 2014 by ettin

[tomsred]

Pensions are quickly being displaced by 401(k) and other self managed retirement plans.  I think that utilized these plans is generally in the best interest of the employees, because it is ultimately up to them to save as little or as much as they feel they need for retirement.  Everyone has a different financial plan and resources.  I would almost be certain that they would provide some kind of match or incentive for each their employees as an incentive to save for retirement, or financial hardship, in the future.  For those promised a pension of some type, I'm sure they have made some kind of provision to convert it into a self managed plan of some sort.  Unless privy to all the details here, it's hard to consider this as a cheap move.  It could just as easily be a financial improvement for their employees as a financial detriment.

[Mile High Dreams]

I'm not sure this was covered or not but just in case you didn't know...it's not your money.

[Curmudgeonly]

It's actually not a bad thing imo, they are not giving them less money, they are just changing the benefits to something they employees have more control over. 

 

"Under team-funded pension plans, employees receive a fixed monthly benefit upon retirement based on a percentage of their top five earning years. The plans can’t be transferred from one team to another or to an outside company, and employees have no control over how funds in the plans are invested.

 

 

The 401k plan is funded by employees with pre-tax and after-tax payroll deductions, a percentage of which is matched by the teams. Employees can choose how aggressively or conservatively they invest funds, and the plans are portable. Employees can also borrow against the plans."

 

Also, employees with pension plans will get to keep them.

[NrM]

And the Angels and Red Sox have beefed up existing defined contribution plans — or 401(k) plans — to offset the reduction and eventual elimination of pension plans, bumping matching contributions from about 4% to as much as 10%, according to employees of both teams.

 

 

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-angels-red-sox-pension-plans-20141218-story.html

 

 

Pimp should've posted the article.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Poozy

[mp170.6]

I wonder what this means for the Angels' financial health. 

 

Fiddling with retirement plans is usually a last resort because you risk serious damage to employee morale.  These cost savings are a drop in the bucket compared to what they spend (and often waste) on player salaries.  Moreno has flushed probably $500 million down the drain on bad player contracts.

 

And now, he's pinching pennies to save a few million annually on pensions?  Probably not a good sign for the future...

[Deek]

What took them so long...?!?!

 

Nice to see our organization is at the fore and keeping up with changing times...

[LAAMike]

I am glad that someone posted the article as everyone was risking injury to their backs by "jumping to conclusions."  This change from defined benefits to defined contributions only affects new hires and not any of the vested employees.  This is a very reasonable and fairly standard business practice.  If new hires do not like the

program than they can chose to work elsewhere.  I agree with Stradling that defined benefit pensions are not something that many of us have access to.  The worst offender in terms of future non affordability will be the government employees pensions.  These will result in either future tax increases or less government services as

the pension obligations will take a larger portion of the funds that are used for education, the safety net for the less fortunate, etc. 

[Lou]

So does anyone actually know what the pension plan entailed ?

 

I'm sure everyone that has bashed this move knows.  I just wish 

they would share their knowledge with the rest of us so we're not

left in the dark.

[Lou]

I wonder what this means for the Angels' financial health. 

 

Fiddling with retirement plans is usually a last resort because you risk serious damage to employee morale.  These cost savings are a drop in the bucket compared to what they spend (and often waste) on player salaries.  Moreno has flushed probably $500 million down the drain on bad player contracts.

 

And now, he's pinching pennies to save a few million annually on pensions?  Probably not a good sign for the future...

 

$500 million down the drain?

 

can you please break that down for us?

 

thanks

[Stradling]

My favorite part about all this is we all get up in arms in the hang out forum about pensions for cops, teachers and especially firemen and we want those to end. However the Angels decide to change their retirement model and Arte is cheap.

[NJHalo]

On the plus side, Arte has enrolled ALL eligible employees in the Jelly of the Month Club.

[tdawg87]

This thread is Angelswin.

[AngelsLongBall]

This thread is Angelswin.

you forgot to quote a source.

-Hindustan Times

[tdawg87]

They prefer to be called Hindis.