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5-28-00

Brothers & Sisters;

While I was at the Nevada State AFL-CIO Conference in Reno last week. A few of us managed to corner one of our staff people; we ragged on him a little about how much more he was paid than a working carpenter and asked him about his dual pension. He at first said that he didn't make as much as the other agents because he was serving the membership. After a while we were able to discover that our agents start out at 10% over journeyman scale and get a 10% raise every year. A BA with ten years in office gets journeyman + 100% and so on, there is no top cut off.

The pension everyone has wondered about is based on their highest paid three year period after a five year vesting period. There is a rather complex formula applied to determine exactly what their pension credits are worth. So when they say they have no idea of what their pension would be they are telling the truth; there is no way to determine it until they actually retire. Plus they receive one credit in the local pension for each year worked.

(Name Withheld Subject to approval)

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