{"id":32366,"date":"2013-03-01T10:07:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T15:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=32366"},"modified":"2013-03-01T10:23:34","modified_gmt":"2013-03-01T15:23:34","slug":"unions-fleecing-bankrupting-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/03\/unions-fleecing-bankrupting-country","title":{"rendered":"Unions &#8216;Fleecing and Bankrupting&#8217; The Country"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_27422\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-27422\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-27422\" title=\"dionisio-daguilar\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/dionisio-daguilar.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/dionisio-daguilar.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/dionisio-daguilar-150x112.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-27422\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dionisio D&#8217;Aguilar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Former Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) Board member, Dionisio D\u2019Aguilar, said that public sector trade unions are \u201cfleecing and bankrupting the country\u201d through unsustainable and non-contributory pension schemes. He gave an example that BEC staff were earning benefits amounting to more than 25 percent of their salaries.<\/p>\n<p>Mr D\u2019Aguilar said government needs to tackle the non-contributory, defined benefit pension plans that are so common in the public sector, as these were unsustainable and could not be afforded by a cash-strapped government. Non-contributory pension plans are paid 100 per cent by the employer\/sponsor, with the employee contributing nothing.<\/p>\n<p>In a Tribune article Mr. D&#8217;Aguialr was quoted: \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely critical that you have these pension reforms. These unions are fleecing the country. It\u2019s completely out of hand. The costs of these pension plans are bankrupting the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As an example, he pointed to the financially-struggling BEC. The company&#8217;s accounts for its 2010 financial year showed that the pension fund had an unfunded liability\/deficit of $31.11 million. This represented an increase upon the $26.54 million and $22.829 million deficits for 2009 and 2008, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Mr D\u2019Aguilar backed comments made to Tribune Business earlier this week by leading Bahamian accountant John Bain, who warned that the days of non-contributory pensions \u201care over\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing that politicians typically became scared when confronted with militant-minded unions, Mr D\u2019Aguilar pleaded with government: \u201cDo what\u2019s in the best interests of the country, not what\u2019s in the best interests of a select group of citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A prominent businessman stated that public sector trade unions are \u201cfleecing and bankrupting the country\u201d through unsustainable and non-contributory pension schemes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[72,134,68],"class_list":["post-32366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-employment","tag-money","tag-unions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}