Well I personally feel that my husband needs to cross the picket line and go back to work. He does not have a pension at coca cola he has a 401K. The old timers that will lose their pension can strike but in the mean time we are hurting for something that does not effect him. Stores are starting to run out of certain coke products and I can not go without my Dasani water. They need to get this resolved….

Companies don’t run the pension.  It is a another group that does.  It the defined benefit that causes the problem.  If stocks or bonds do nothing like they have for the last couple years, these pensions don’t make the money to keep giving out to retirees.  The money that is needed to keep the pension stable comes back to the company to keep afloat.  Instead of investing in the company, companies stay in business to support pensions.  No company can do that. It makes the company go out of business.  Look at GM.  They have lots of issues.  But their pension plans and union contracts will make them lose to a new Korean company every day all day.  It’s all about price to the person buying the car.  Not retiree benefits.  The person buying a soda will not pay more so someone can have a pension.

In my opinion it’s not good for either side to be in charge of these retirement funds. It needs to be ran by an independent third party. I’ve seen where union officers and even their secretaries got way better retirements and pay than the people working on the floor, but usually these came from union dues and not from retirement funds contributed to by the workers and company. But I imagine they still have both kinds of plans.

I am buying more Coke products than ever.

In this case, it is a Teamster run fund.  It is the issue from 10yrs back with the UPS strike.  The concern then was that the union was eating off of the fund. The guy on the floor does not see that.  See what the the union boss’ get for retirement.  It is from this fund.

Ha ha ha carl!!! They had plenty of Bottled Water.

I have been known to ride by and give the ones walking a picket a coke on hot days, but I think in this case I’d probably give a 7UP or PEPSI, I wouldn’t want anything thrown at me.

I just passed the strikers and boy does it make me sad.  I hate that.  They need our support.

I think that getting money from a pension plan with the intentions of never paying it back is raiding a pension plan’s funds. It’s happened in the past and most likely will happen again. There are federal laws to require that a certain amount be kept in those plans for the number of anticipated retirees. Now, we’re talking about employees contributing with the company into the fund, And in the past some companies have been with-drawing money from these funds if they claimed there was an excess in the fund from interest or investments. These funds are usually held by independent third parties and shouldn’t be accessible by either one, but some companies have found loop holes to use and get the money. There fore I call it raiding if you have no intention of returning it.

I don’t know the particulars but I do not see companies raiding pension funds.  I see companies withdrawing from them. It is different.  Pensions cannot be kept whole.  The younger folks lose in the process.  the idea of retiring at 58 with lots of money is not something that can be done even if it’s what you worked for.