Remove Retirement Take Away from Our Contracts

To Mayor Greg Nickels,

The City is insisting that unions accept new contract language that institutes cost sharing to make up for shortfalls in the Retirement Fund. We the undersigned public employees object to paying 50\% of the "over 30-year unfunded liability" of the fund. Accepting this proposal means agreeing to a potential unlimited tax on workers paychecks and a give away of the unions right to negotiate the issue in the future. We call on the city to be a model employer, and maintain a decades old standard that is codified in law. Seattle Municipal Code 4.36.110 holds the city responsible for ensuring that the retirement fund can meet its obligations above and beyond the employees' 8.03\% contributions.

The proposed contract language will, for the first time, automatically put city employee paychecks on the line to cover future financial shortfalls of the fund. While shortfalls may seem unlikely today, we are facing a shaky national economy mixed with the large number of baby boomers hitting retirement age. Add to this the retirement board's increased use of higher-risk investments along with current city policies of contracting out which shrinks the pool of fund contributors, and city employees/retirees could face a "perfect storm" that would seriously endanger their paychecks and/or pensions.

We do not accept this concession and call on the Mayor to withdraw this section of the tentative agreement.