Workers regard pension protection campaign promise as long overdue

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Protection for pensions is on the campaign radar now that the Conservatives have promised to prioritized workers’ pensions when a company goes bankrupt.

Former Nortel employees say such a move is long overdue.

“It was a shock when it happened,” said Francois Meunier, a pensioner and founder of the disbanded Nortel Retirees and Former Employees Protection Committee which fought to preserve pensions for 21,000 people after Nortel went bankrupt in 2009.

The Nortel retirees and employees faced drastic pension reductions as their company foundered after the financial crisis.

“Everyone saw that cutback in pension level,” Meunier said. “The early days were for sure the worst days because we got cut back overnight.”

Nortel’s collapse triggered a scramble among creditors around the world for its vast assets.

It took seven years, but Meunier and his group eventually recovered from up to 95% of their pensions — depending on which province they lived in — but without protection from inflation.

“We have recovered since then because we won the court case,” he says.

Dianne Urquhart, a financial analyst who advised about 350 Nortel claimants on long-term disability, says her group got short shrift.

“It was a horrendous process for all but particularly for the disabled and then the pensioners. It was galling that the bondholders got 100 cents on the dollar,” Urquhart said.

The pension protection issue the Tories promise to address has recently been before Parliament.

Just five weeks ago, the Industry committee examined a Bloc Quebecois private members’ bill addressing the problem.

But Bill C-253 died upon dissolution.

Mark Zigler, lawyer for the former Nortel workers, testified June 3.

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“To do nothing,” he told the committee, “… is to ignore the problem and to let down the pensioners of this country.”

Now that the Tories have made it a campaign promise, “I don’t think we have ever seen either of the two major federal parties championing this,” Zigler said. “In fact, they took a contrary position as recently as a few months ago. Suddenly there’s an about-face which is good but you have to view it with a grain of salt.”

Given the Nortel experience, Meunier says he spent years lobbying MPs to protect pensioners.

“We were looking for protection for our people obviously. But if we didn’t succeed we were trying to create an awareness that others that follow us would benefit.”