Unifor says a ruling by the Ontario Financial Services Tribunal on a long-standing pension dispute at Navistar not only upholds a previous decision on the workers’ pension rights but also expands them.
The Ontario Financial Services Tribunal upheld an earlier ruling by the deputy superintendent of pensions that workers who left a Navistar truck plant in Chatham, Ont., between 2009 and the plant’s closure in 2011 were eligible for a special early retirement on an actuarially unreduced basis.
The ruling also expanded the number of workers eligible for an unreduced early retirement, and those eligible for a supplementary 0.9 of a year’s service to count toward their pensions.
“We not only won the appeal but expanded the original superintendent of pension’s ruling,” says Unifor national president Jerry Dias. “This is a solid victory for the workers at Navistar, who have been through a long and hard fight to defend their rights.”
Production at the plant stopped in June 2009, with the company announcing the plant’s permanent disclosure in July 2011, leading to a partial windup of the pension plan.