{"id":8349,"date":"2020-08-10T06:49:11","date_gmt":"2020-08-10T11:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.une-sen.org\/press\/?p=8349"},"modified":"2020-08-19T06:33:19","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T11:33:19","slug":"psac-pushes-back-against-misleading-reporting-of-federal-pension-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/?p=8349","title":{"rendered":"PSAC pushes back against misleading reporting of federal pension plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-8350\" src=\"http:\/\/www.une-sen.org\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Pension.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Pension.png 1200w, https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Pension-300x158.png 300w, https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Pension-1024x538.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Pension-768x403.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden view-mode-full\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>PSAC&nbsp;is advocating to roll back changes that the government made to its reporting of federal pension costs because they make the cost of the plan volatile.<\/p>\n<p>Pension accounting&nbsp;decisions&nbsp;can profoundly impact the&nbsp;path&nbsp;that&nbsp;governments&nbsp;take&nbsp;when&nbsp;determining the affordability and viability of&nbsp;workers\u2019 pensions.&nbsp;The accounting changes in question, made in 2018, valued pre-2000 pension liabilities in a way that falsely assumed all these liabilities would have to be paid off that year. In a recent submission to the federal government, PSAC suggests a fair&nbsp;accounting method&nbsp;to better reflect the pension plan\u2019s real cost.<\/p>\n<p>PSAC members are the primary beneficiaries of both the&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.canada.ca\/en\/treasury-board-secretariat\/topics\/pension-plan.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Service Pension Plan<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;(PSPP) and of the&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pshcp.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Public Service Health Care Plan<\/a><\/strong>&nbsp;(PSHCP). Combined,&nbsp;these two plans represent the largest proportion of employee pension and other future benefit costs reported by the federal government. As a result they are frequently targeted by fiscal conservatives who constantly clamour for public service spending cuts.<\/p>\n<p>The union\u2019s&nbsp;submission&nbsp;to the Department of Finance&nbsp;argues&nbsp;that pensions are&nbsp;in fact&nbsp;deferred wages&nbsp;that members earn throughout their careers.&nbsp;The pension and benefits that government workers receive when they retire are not a tax-payers\u2019 gift, but rather an earned employment right.&nbsp; Pensions&nbsp;must be treated as a&nbsp;long-term obligation&nbsp;by&nbsp;the employer,&nbsp;however, the government\u2019s&nbsp;chosen accounting methods&nbsp; make the pension plan appear more costly than it truly is based on short-term market fluctuations.&nbsp;PSAC is calling on the government to&nbsp;choose valuation and reporting methods that are both transparent and fair.<\/p>\n<p>Your union will&nbsp;always push to ensure that your pension is safe, secure and well-funded.<\/p>\n<p>Read&nbsp;our submission to the&nbsp;federal government&nbsp;<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/psacunion.ca\/sites\/psac\/files\/attachments\/pdfs\/psac_submission_pension_and_benefit_plans_-_gains_and_losses.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-field-attachments\">\n<div class=\"label-above\">Attachments:<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"file\"><img class=\"file-icon\" title=\"application\/pdf\" src=\"http:\/\/psacunion.ca\/modules\/file\/icons\/application-pdf.png\" alt=\"PDF icon\">&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/psacunion.ca\/sites\/psac\/files\/attachments\/pdfs\/psac_submission_pension_and_benefit_plans_-_gains_and_losses.pdf\" type=\"application\/pdf; length=284068\">psac_submission_pension_and_benefit_plans_-_gains_and_losses.pdf<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PSAC&nbsp;is advocating to roll back changes that the government made to its reporting of federal pension costs because they make the cost of the plan volatile. Pension accounting&nbsp;decisions&nbsp;can profoundly impact the&nbsp;path&nbsp;that&nbsp;governments&nbsp;take&nbsp;when&nbsp;determining the affordability and viability of&nbsp;workers\u2019 pensions.&nbsp;The accounting changes in question, made in 2018, valued pre-2000 pension liabilities in a way that falsely assumed all &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/?p=8349\" class=\"more-link\">>><span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;PSAC pushes back against misleading reporting of federal pension plan&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12,169,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8349"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8383,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8349\/revisions\/8383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unesen.ca\/press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}