Drained pension fund has retired New York union workers pinching pennies to survive, as doom looms for reserves across U.S.

By Ginger Adams Otis, Daily News:

In the backseat of his beat-up car, Tim Chmil stashes what he refers to as his new retirement fund — bags and bags of recyclable bottles and cans.

Every time he spots a bottle on the street, he bends down to pick it up.

“Even if it’s just 5 cents, it’s money, and I need it,” the 71-year-old said.

It’s not the way the ex-trucker — a member of Teamsters Local 707 — expected to fund his senior years.

Local 707′s once booming pension fund runs out of money

Chmil is one of roughly 4,000 retired Teamsters across New York State suffering a fate that could soon hit millions of working-class Americans — the loss of their union pensions.

Teamsters Local 707’s pension fund is the first to officially bottom out financially — which happened this month.

“I had a union job for 30 years,” Chmil said. “We had collectively bargained contracts that promised us a pension. I paid into it with every paycheck. Everyone told us, ‘Don’t worry, you have a union job, your pension is guaranteed.’ Well, so much for that.”

Narvaez received a certificate when he retired that guaranteed his lifetime pension, but last year, he and 4,000 others were informed their checks would be slashed.

Also on the brink of drying up are the pensions for two Teamster locals — 641 and 560 — in New Jersey, union officials said. Plus 35,000 Teamster members upstate who are part of the money-hemorrhaging New York State Teamsters Pension Fund.

Bigger than all of New York’s Teamster locals combined is the Central States Pension Fund — another looming financial disaster that could leave 407,000 retirees without pensions across the Midwest and South.

And there’s still more beyond that, in various industries, officials say.

“It’s a nightmare, it has just devastated all of our lives. I’ve gone from having $48,000 a year to less than half that,” said Chmil, one of five Local 707 retirees who agreed to share their stories with the Daily News last week.

“I don’t want other people to have to go through this. We need everyone to wake up and do something; that’s why we’re talking,” said Ray Narvaez.

Narvaez, 77, got a union certificate upon retirement in 2003 that guaranteed him a lifetime pension of $3,479 a month.

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