Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President of OPSEU, has sent the following letter to Michael Rolland, CEO of OMERS, about the OMERS board’s adoption of shared risk indexing.
July 2, 2020
Mr. Michael Rolland
Chief Executive Officer
OMERS Sponsors Corporation
900-100 Adelaide Street West
Toronto, Ontario M5H 0E2Dear Mr. Rolland,
We are greatly disappointed by your announcement that details of the Shared Risk Indexing (SRI) plan passed by the board on June 24 will not be made available to OPSEU’s members for many months.
It is unacceptable that the OMERS SC Board has proceeded with this vote without releasing the text of the motions and amendments, or details on how this plan will be administered. I would have hoped those details were at least shared with the directors of the SC Board before they were asked to decide on making such a significant benefit reduction.
OMERS has refused our prior requests for printed materials related to this proposed change citing confidentiality.
Now that the board has voted to go ahead with SRI, we insist you send us materials detailing the specific outline of how this change will be implemented; specifically, our members are asking us what this means to their pensions. They have a right to know now, not many months in the future.
OMERS website does not provide nearly enough information to our members. They do not know how this will affect them. We have not received any details, printed materials or specific information on how OMERS intends to administer this change.
We are asking that you provide us with the text of the motions and related amendments that led to Shared Risk Indexing, as well as all calculations and modelling that OMERS has conducted or arranged. We would also appreciate details on the decision to allow non full-time workers in the Plan.
It’s important that OMERS fully inform all members about these changes without further delay.
We look forward to your response.
Sincerely yours,
Warren (Smokey) Thomas
President of OPSEU