John Breguet

Dear Mr. Diossa

Your Pension Advisory Working Group (“PAWG”) on November 30th, 2023, is scheduled to hear from organized labor as to labor’s proposals for the Employee Retirement System of Rhode Island (ERSRI).  We also understand that your group will allow a presentation from an entity entitled “RIPERC” and/or an entity that calls itself “Local 8037r.” The presentations of these two latter groups, we have been led to believe, will include expert testimony.

RIPERC and Local 8037r members are public retirees.  While Local 8037r has a right to call itself anything that it wishes, it is not a labor union.  As you may be aware, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that retirees are not entitled to union membership.Essentially, the interests of active employees are different from those of retirees.  Furthermore, while the PAWG has labor representatives as panel members, there are no individuals representing the interests of retirees.    Further, the leadership of the two above labor entities, RIPERC and Local 8037r are officials inteacher unions and their interests align primarily with unions, not retirees.

As admitted by Mr. Patrick Crowley, a high union official and a member of the PAWG panel, the priority of labor is the current employees, not the retirees.  He states that “The focus of organized labor as it relates to the Rhode Island state pension system ... is going to be on the active employees," and that “from our point of view, we have to prioritize the active employees.” See “Political Scene: Pat Crowley in line to lead RI AFL-CIO,” Providence Journal, 20 September 2023.

In other words, there is no one on that panel who advocates for retirees. Our group, “Advocates for COLA Restoration and Pension Reform” is a non-profit group composed of 1,902 public sector retirees, beneficiaries, and current employees.  We also have a series of recommendations to make to the panel.  However, we have been told that our group will only be allowed to present at the hearing on December 14, 2023, the hearing where individual retirees will have the opportunity to testify.  Further, because of the large number of retirees expected to testify, we have been informed that each retiree will have only a short period of time to address the committee. Finally, if too many retirees appear on December 14, 2023, we have been told that it is possible some will not be able to testify.

It is not possible to present an alternative proposal in five minutes; we cannot present expert testimony during these few minutes; we cannot show problems with other proposals; we cannot introduce exhibits; we cannot clarify matters which a member of the panel would like to have elucidated.  Thus, the PAWG will never know if our approach is more feasible than the other alternatives that may have been presented by other groups.  It will also leave our 1,902 members and the general public with the clear impression that the union proposals were pre-ordained and that retirees had no voice.

We ask that the members of the PAWG be polled to determine whether our group should be allowed to present on November 30th, 2023.

In the interest of fairness, we request that you either allow our group to present on November 30th, 2023, or that you schedule the presentations of all non-union groups for December 14th, 2023.

Sincerely,

John Breguet

Submitted via email