I like 959! They have their own pension plan, but for some reason their employers contribute to the Western Conference plan too, but at a very low rate. (I work for the Western Conference plan.) That means the benefits usually cash out, but occasionally they give rise to lovely complicated situations (e.g., small monthly pension followed after the pensioner's death by a lump sum cashout of his spouse's pension, followed by discovery that the company he worked for changed hands enough times that he gets some extra pension credit, causing the whole thing to have to be recalculated after the fact) that the pension computer doesn't know how to deal with, and then it starts throwing out completely idiotic results that fill one with glee.
Besides, they never adopted the Seven Cent Nickel, and occasionally one of the pension processors forgets that, and then you get to Give Them an Error, which is always fun.
And then, if the person only worked out of Local 959 before 1975 and then stopped being covered by the Western Conference plan at all, they are subject to Transition D, and what could be better than that?
Three cheers for 959! read more
