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It's a 'Burgh
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Posted on 06/29/2005 7:50:11 AM PDT by mountaineer
Pittsburgh Brewing, whose Iron City beer has been a staple of Pittsburgh life for more than 140 years, is warning it will go out of business unless it is allowed to terminate a pension plan covering about 530 current and former employees.
The company has told the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. it has lost $1.2 million from operations over the last three years despite $1 million in cost reductions and forbearance by lenders, government agencies and others who have granted concessions to save it.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
'Burgh ping!
Switch it from a defined benefit to a defined contribution. Lots of corporations have done that. Or do they have a union that is more interested in deep-sixing the corporation than in saving the company and employee jobs?
The pension won't save them. They are the walking dead. This is a ploy by the owners to get out from under a problem and be able to divide a larger amount of the spoils when it finally does collaspe.
It looks like their problem is more than just pensions.
Think about it, retirees alone cause a huge strain on these plans. They contributed a miniscule amount during their working years for health insurance and are now comsuming 100x what they put in. The math simply doesn't work.
I killed many brain cells with this swill.
So why did these companies, union or no union agree to this and now want us to bail them out?
Looks like Vitamin I needs a shot of Vitamin $$$$$ and lots of it.
Lots of problems, indeed!
... Brewery officials said in the letter than lenders won't finance $4 million in plant improvements because of the pension problem. Among other things, the brewery needs to replace a 45-year-old keg system and a 65-year-old boiler that generates steam to power brewery equipment.
An investment group bought the company at a bankruptcy auction 10 years ago for more than $31 million, including assuming $18 million in debt. The company's vice chairman, Joseph Piccirilli, put up $7 million of the $13.6 million in cash involved in the deal, the letter says.
Brewery officials didn't immediately return calls for comment Wednesday.
The brewery employs about 250. It hasn't made almost $900,000 in pension contributions required since last October. The company is on the hook for another $455,000 contribution next month and the same amount in October, according to the letter. ...
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/12013771.htm
Expect to see a lot of companies screwing their workers now. The precedent has already been set.
But only the weak ones.
The company made a contract with the workers and now must live up to it. If that means selling or closing the company and dividing the assets among those vested in the pension system, so be it.
It's lousy beer anyway.
Let them go out of business. They are the idiots that decided to set up a DC plan, and then apparently under-funded it. There should be consequences for stupid long term decisions. Of course, given that Sociail Security is the largest unfunded DC plan ever, it is understandable that they would seek help from the Feds.
Let'em go out of business. Then the responsible parties (incompentent management) will lose their jobs in addition to those workers who were NOT so responsible.
That's simple. The unions and the workers demanding better benefits at lower costs to the workers thanks to Taft-Hartley. Also nobody predicted decades ago that healthcare costs would rise as significantly as they did. The unions said NO to reforming and restructuring their members benefit plans. Just as today, the socialist groups like the unions are attempting to prevent reform of social security. When that system fails guess who will bail that out as well?
I agree.
It appears that the market is not satisfied with their product, or their sales team is incompetent.
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It's a 'Burgh
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PITTSBURGH (AP) - Pittsburgh Brewing Co. workers ratified a five-year contract that provides increased wages and pension benefits, minimal job losses based on attrition, and employee contributions to health insurance. The contract covers about 150 workers, who had been working under an extension of a contract that expired April 30, said David Kelly, president of Bottlers Local 144B. The brewery makes Iron City and I.C. Light beers. source
Looks like IC Brewery executives signed a contract knowing that they would soon dump the pension obligations onto the backs of taxpayers.
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