Government didn't protect Wabush pensioners, Ron Barron says

A retired Wabush Mines employee says more could have been done by Ottawa and the province to protect the pensions of former mine workers.

"I sure do [feel betrayed] this morning, and you talk to 900 other pensioners that are out there, they're going to tell you that they feel betrayed too," said Ron Barron, who worked at the mines for 27 years.

"This is nothing new," he told CBC's Labrador Morning Friday.

"This is something that's been happening for decades, where companies come in here and they take our resources and make huge profits and walk away, through bankruptcy proceedings, and leave the pensioners and the workers holding the bag."

On Thursday, the provincial superintendent of pensions announced that workers' payments will be reduced in the new year because the pension program was under-funded.

• Cliffs needs to better protect Wabush pensioners, Dwight Ball says
• Wabush pensioners angry about prospect of reduced incomes

Roughly 2,300 former workers will be affected.

No planning orprevention

Barron, who is also aformer mayor of Wabush, said all of this could have been prevented.

"First of all, pension plans should be fully funded. They sign agreements to unions that they're going to have this pension there for their future, and our laws allow them to be under-funded to a certain extent."

In the end, he said, it's always the workers and pensioners who pay the price.

Barronsaid hestands to lose hundreds of dollars a month a hard blow considering he didn't receive a full pension to begin with.

"I was forcefully retired when Wabush Mines laid me off I get a little over $1,500 a month and because of that, now I'm looking at losing about $350 a month."

He said people who retired 20 and 25 years ago receive much less.

Waited too long

Barron said provincial officials werein the region in late August to meet with pensioners, and hethinks it was known then that the pensions were under-funded.

"Here we are today, four or five months later, six months later, talking about how our pension plan is going to be under-funded by 20, 25 per cent when at that time it was anywhere from 16 to 8 per cent."

Somebodythat's 70 and 80 years old they can't go to work.- Ron Barron, former mayor and WabushMines worker

Government, he said,should have acted sooner.Waiting until this week to make the announcementmeans pensions are even more under-funded than before, said Barron.

"Our money was left into the markets,they lost more moneywhen that money should have been frozen and protected the workers so there couldn't be anymore loss," he said.

"But they didn't do that."

He said government, both provincially and federally, hasn't played a strong enough role in the situation.

Premier Dwight Ball's plan for job creation, he said, isn't going to work because about 700 pensioners don't live in the area.

"How is somebody that's 70 and 80 years old going to benefit from working in a job that's meagre pensions anyways, they can't go to work," he said.

"I tell ya, people are getting frustrated [as] hell here."

Meanwhile, Service NL will hold an information session for pensioners Saturday at 3 p.m., in the basement of Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Church in Wabush.