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Comment by baron816 | Hacker News Reader

> I stay here because in two years, I'll be 62 and I have a union pension acquired over 37 years. I've spent so much time here that I might as well take that pension and social security and call it quits.

Had they not been locked in by the pension, I'd imagine most of them would've quit, and Frito-Lay would've been force to improve conditions.

I wonder if unions prefer pensions pretty much for the same reason--it allows businesses to abuse workers, forcing them to turn to unions to bargain for better conditions while also keeping them locked in to the business and thus the union.

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Yeah, definitely that and not making sure their members have security when it's time to retire.

You can get the same security from investing the money taken from your paycheck in a diverse way. That is all the company is doing.

Correct. I have a 401(k) that I put my own money into and choose the funds I invest in. If I leave my job, I can take that money with me.

Companies should auto enroll and fund employees 401(k)s, which most don't do now. But they should not require 40 years of employment to be eligible to receive ANY retirement funds.

We've been talking about non-competes on HN lately. What could be more anti-competitive than having a 40 year cliff on a major chunk of your compensation? Tech companies have a 1 year cliff on equity, and even that is outrageous.

But they should not require 40 years of employment to be eligible to receive ANY retirement funds.

I don't know how you got confused about this. In the USA pensions must vest at 100% after 3 to 7 years of work (depending on details). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Retirement_Income_Sec...

What's likely in this case is that the employee can't start drawing on his pension until he's 62 years old.

"Locked in" needs some clarification. For the overwhelming majority of defined benefit pensions, employees vest in (become qualified to receive) their benefits within the first 5 years of their service. They only need to wait until they've met the payout provisions of the plan...something like 55 years old and 10+ years of service for early retirement, for example.

What's more likely is that employees are sticking around because their years of service factors into their ultimate benefit payout once they retire. More years of service (up to a limit, typically) gets a higher benefit. And this probably only matters for the employees who've been around longest because the plan is probably frozen to new entrants.

The employee being quoted is weighing the value he'll get from adding 2 more years to his benefit formula vs going somewhere else for higher pay.

A pension should never be conditional on “not quitting”. Can it legally be? If you work 10 years you earned 10 years of pension. It should be yours regardless of what happened (e.g if you get fired).

If pensions can be conditional on not quitting, not getting fired or similar, then unions already failed (but this should be law and not require unions).

Nope. He is just like a prisoner coming up for parole who doesn't want to get into any trouble that will affect his release.

The risk isn't worth it.

would being featured in this article jeapordize it? why even do it when you get a pension in two years

He was featured anonymously.

Though it's possible that there is enough information (age, tenure, gender) in the article to identify him. A bit hard to say.

He'd also have a pretty clear cut case with the NLRB if he was fired or otherwise punished for talking to the press about labor conditions (which isn't to say that this doesn't happen sometimes anyways).

EDIT: Er, nevermind. I misread it as being told to Mark McCarter thinking he was the Vice journalist. But he's actually the factory employee and Lauren Gurley is the journalist. I'm an idiot. TY ALittleLight for pointing out my mistake.

Anonymously? They call him by name (Mark McCarter) and show a picture.

Er. Oops. My bad. See my EDIT note.

You read this and your first instinct is to attack unions?

Why is your first instinct to assume unions are wholesome, benevolent actors? Unions have a long history of corruption, racism, and being associated with organized crime.

Remind me where I said that, please.

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