H. Pensions
1. General
- A teacher’s pension is an earned right to be exercised after specified conditions of length of service have been met.
- A teacher’s pension should be sufficient to allow the teacher to live in dignity and in a manner closely approximating that to which the teacher was accustomed.
- Teacher pensions should be provided through a compulsory plan(s) to all teachers in Newfoundland and Labrador and to such other persons as legislation may recognize.
2. Right of Access
- Compulsory retirement based on an arbitrary age distinction should be eliminated for teachers; termination of a teacher’s contract should be governed by conditions related to job performance as stipulated within the collective agreement. The elimination of mandatory retirement is supported with a recognition that the continuing employment of teachers shall not have a detrimental effect upon the benefit entitlement of the majority of the membership of the Teachers’ Pension Plan.
- Teacher pension plans should have full reciprocity with other similar plans.
3. Benefit Improvement
- Teacher pensions should be indexed.
- Vesting for members of the Teachers’ Pension Plan should occur after a minimum of two years of pensionable service.
- Teachers should be eligible for disability benefits under the Teachers’ Pension Plan after a minimum of two years of pensionable service.
- Teachers should have rights to deferred pensions under the Teachers’ Pension Plan after a minimum of two years of pensionable service.
- Survivor benefits should be paid to the surviving spouse and/or dependent children to age 18 or to age 24 if the children are enrolled in post-secondary studies. For disabled children, the benefit should continue indefinitely. The benefit should be 70% of the member’s pension, payable to the spouse, and, in the case of no spouse, payable in equal amounts to eligible children.
- Teachers in Labrador West should be permitted to make pension contributions based upon the Labrador West differential, and payments should take into account earnings represented by the Labrador West differential. [Feb/5-7/92] [1993 AGM]
- The Teachers’ Pension Plan should provide access to a pension at age 55 with fewer than 25 years of pensionable service. Such pension would be available on the application of an appropriate benefit reduction factor so that the availability of the pension to the teachers does not create any increase in the overall liability of the Plan. [Mar/7-8/97]
- The calculation of the pension benefit for a teacher under the defined benefit plan should be based on the average of the highest 30 tenths of salary.
4. Service Acquisition
- Teachers who take unpaid leave should be entitled to purchase such time as worked service. [Feb/5-7/92] [1993 AGM]
- The Pensions Act should be amended to allow teachers who have federal, military or teaching service within Canada which cannot otherwise be credited into the Teachers’ Pension Plan to purchase such periods of service directly under the Education (Teachers’ Pensions) Act.
- Teachers with substitute service prior to September 1989 should be provided with a more equitable method of purchasing such service for pension purposes. [Aug/28-29/92]
- University years should be counted as work service under the teachers’ pension plan. [1992 AGM]
- Teachers should be able to buy back any time lost due to job actions. [1999 BGM]
5. Interprovincial Transfer
- The Association will continue to pursue efforts through the provincial government, as pension plan sponsor, to retain reciprocity with other teacher pension plans under the current multilateral transfer agreement. [Jun/2-3/95] [1996 AGM] [Mar/9/01] [2001 BGM] [Apr/22/04] [JC Nov/04] [2005 BGM]
6. Pension Indexing
An indexing provision should be included in the Teachers’ Pension Plan (TPP) for all plan members whose benefits have been integrated with the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). [1999 BGM]
7. Pension Integration
The integration formula in the TPP should be adjusted to ensure that the integration factor cannot be greater than the monies the recipient receives from the CPP. [1999 BGM]
