Pensions

Unions in Manitoba and across the country have been pushing for CPP expansion for decades, despite the fact that union Collective Agreements provide workplace pension plans for many union members. Here’s why:

Fewer than 40% of Canadian workers have access to a workplace pension plan. In the private sector, that number drops to less than 25%, and for workers under 29, top just 13%.
Today, even workers with a workplace pension plan or alternative savings are vulnerable to financial insecurity in retirement. Fewer employers are offering workplace pensions and more workplace pensions are seeing reduced benefits.
The CPP follows workers from job to job, keeps up with the cost of living, and pays out benefits for life, regardless of how the stock market performs.

Unions believe we all have a responsibility to work to end seniors’ poverty – a terrible problem which disproportionately affects women in their senior years. We also know that pensions are crucially important not only to the well-being of workers and their families, but to the economic health and vitality of our communities as well.

Find out more about what the expanded CPP will mean for you.

While labour is pleased with the recent CPP improvement, still more needs to be done to ensure retirement security for all, including:

Recognizing the time that parents, especially women, take away from the paid workforce to raise children.
Removing penalties for workers with disabilities who take time away from work due to their disabilities.
Increasing the CPP income replacement rate further, raising the ceiling on pensionable earnings and further enhancing the portion of employee contributions that are tax-deductible.

You can find out more about different pension and savings options, like

The Canada Pension Plan
Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS)
Workplace pension plans – also see your union Collective Agreement
Registered retirement and other private saving options

at the following government resource sites:

You can also learn more about the state of pension plans in Manitoba, how workplace pension plans are coming under increasing attack, and the advantages of Defined Benefit (DB) plans over Defined Contribution (DC) plans by reading the CCPA – Manitoba’s new report Pensions in Manitoba at https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/pensions-manitoba

Your MFL

A strong MFL is more important now than ever before. Premier Brian Pallister has already passed a law that makes it more difficult to join a union; undermined the collective bargaining process; and made cuts to public services – like healthcare and education – and laid-off workers. All this despite promising to protect public services and the people who provide them. We are fighting back and you can too. Learn more about why unions matter and get involved in your union or unionize your workplace.

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