Opinion ID: 1829719
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: retirement

Text: Section I Any active hourly employee who has worked an average of one thousand (1,000) hours each year for the department for fifteen (15) consecutive years and who has been declared eligible for retirement benefits by the U.S. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION shall be entitled to a pension of two hundred ($200.00) dollars per month. Section II Any active employee who having worked for the department an average of one thousand (1,000) hours each year for twenty (20) or more consecutive years and who has been declared eligible for retirement benefits by the U.S. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION shall be entitled to a pension of three hundred ($300.00) dollars per month. Section III Any employee or former employee who having worked for the department an average of one thousand (1,000) hours each year for twenty-five (25) or more consecutive years and who has been declared eligible for retirement benefits by the U.S. SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION shall be entitled to a pension of four hundred and fifty ($450.00) dollars per month. Section IV The department will maintain an actuarially sound retirement fund covering its employees. The Hourly Paid Alabama State Docks Department Workers Retirement Plan and Trust (pension fund) was created to administer those negotiated pension benefits; accordingly, the plaintiffs named its trustees as defendants. The pension fund is funded entirely by the Docks Department based upon an actuarial computation of the demographic makeup of the hourly workers who will be eligible for benefits from the fund; neither the plaintiffs nor any other hourly worker contributed any money to the pension fund. Although the Docks Department has not paid the plaintiffs any benefits from the pension fund, it is undisputed that the pension fund remains in existence and that other Docks Department employees may obtain benefits from that fund. One of the classes of plaintiffs in this action, to which the complaint refers as the class I plaintiffs, claims that its members are entitled to pension benefits pursuant to the provisions set out above. Specifically, the class I plaintiffs claim that under Article 6.2 of the agreement the Union ceased to be their collective bargaining unit when they were terminated, so that the pension fund is partially terminated, and that they are, thus, according to them, entitled to pension benefits. The Union and the Docks Department also entered into an agreement, effective April 2, 1986, concerning group insurance. It stated: