Is that something you still believe is possible?
21 replies (most recent on top)
I hope you deleted a good share of the critical documents that you created over your career in response to the reduction in your monthly pension.
Re: This is in response to those suggesting getting a lawyer or pursuing an age discrimination case against 3M
This literally made me sick to my stomach. I thought I was done dirty but this takes the cake. Sorry you had to go through this experience. You were undeserving of it. This company has lost its soul. Its completely VILE.
This is in response to those suggesting getting a lawyer or pursuing an age discrimination case against 3M. I was let go 2 weeks before my 54th birthday (30+ years). 18 months prior to this I was blocked from leaving the organization during a reorg. while younger employees in the same role were allowed to go. Six months later I started applying for internal jobs, since I was a "critical" team member our director offered me a "confidential" three months of pay retention bonus to stay in my current role until September 2022. I told him at the time I was 53 and if there was any chance a layoff was coming I could not risk staying due to the pension hit. He assured me that was not the case. Twenty days before the retention bonus date my role was eliminated. I immediately went into action trying find a job to prevent the loss of 55% of the monthly pension I was planning to get at 55. Most job postings were pulled off the system to prevent us from obtaining internal jobs. I was blocked by HR from being hired into a role I previously held with contribution codes 4 and 5 (clearly, I could do the job)! I contacted HR pleading with them for help, I was willing to take a manufacturing production role to get to my numbers. Our HR manager's reply was...."I don't think you understand, this is not a negotiation". Are you kidding...? I gave my life to this company for 30+ years and this is the response I get.
I reached out to a couple of employment lawyers. Two agreed to take my case but warned me about the "games" 3M is playing. 1) They know the number games when it comes to age discrimination and will manipulate the populations to ensure they are not at risk. 2) One legal firm told me they worked with 3M for years and the previous legal team was very reasonable and would come up with an acceptable retirement agreement (plus 1 year of service etc...). The current legal team won't respond in many cases and if they do it is nearly impossible to get a fair deal. 3) 3M will hold you up in mediation until you run out of money fighting. You also will lose your severance pay as you must sign off on all legal claims against 3M within 45 days to get it. I know at least one person who lost their entire severance trying to get a fair settlement. Another person had a lawyer send multiple letters without response and like many of us had to sign off on any future legal action to prevent loss of severance. Bottom line...3M can get away with anything including taking our pensions at a point in our life when we can't make it up unless we continue working for another company until we die. I would love to hear if there is anyone who has been successful in a case against 3M in the last 18 months.
Thanks for posting about the attempt by senior leaders, including gibbons, to try to allow people to be divided and conquered.
For those of us who hired in the 1980s and even 90s, a nice pension and retiree medical support was part of the package that helped many chose 3M over others. While pensions were still common for large companies, many had started phasing out any retiree support for medical.
I can't count how many long weekends I spent in the plant, how many phone calls I took after hours, etc. These were part of the trade off for those things. While the pay was good it was never great. The GESPP was supposed to reward people but that is now a disaster.
I do believe the poster who mentioned they were told to cut two people aged 53 and 54 before they could get the full pension. This person also got bounced at 54 after canning those under them. Also, a number of people lost out when they failed to make the magic 92 number by a year or less. No chance that HR wasn't aware of this practice. Someone mentioned patrick Campbell, who was CFO under mcnerney but turned into a pretty good guy for Buckley. No chance he would have let this horrific behavior happen.
Let's stick together and hope some people who got screwed by the timing of their termination decide to file an age discrimination lawsuit. I remember not that many years ago when if you were let go after a certain age you could buy more to help close the bridge if you were just short of 55 or 92 numbers.
Stay safe out there. The production plants are in bad shape for maintenance. Don't put your life or health on the line, please.
pension to bolster their retirement, while I certainly will not. A line from a favorite poem sums it up, "Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexatious to the spirt. If you compare yourself with other, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater or lesser persons than yourself." That is true, particularly concerning comparing ourselves as regular rank-and-file 3Mers- Our quarrel is not with each other. It is with senior management.
The game's rules have changed- a thirty-year 3Mer made a different deal than one hired 5 or 10 years ago. The same holds true for areas and countries. Everybody got a slightly different arrangement. I don't know if that is how it should be, but that is how it is. I believe that squabbling with each other is part of how the elites remain elite. Suppose they can get various 3M demographics at 3M to squabble over the differences in their experience based on when or where they came into the company. If they can do that, the C-suite maintains the upper hand, like a magician getting you to look the other way while performing a card trick.
Management is greedy and out of touch, hurting all of us. Pitting the 30-somethings against the fifty-somethings is merely part of the game.
Let's not fall for it.
If people joined in the 1980s, they gave up perhaps a better paying job (dupont and others were paying better) to enjoy life at a company that treated employees like family. Mother Mining has turned into an abandoned strip mine for careers.
No one thinks 3M is a charity BUT there used to be a social contract that if you were loyal to a company for 35 years or whatever then that company would help you in retirement with a pension. 3M obviously has no qualms dumping people on their as--s 6 months before their pension fully vests after an entire career of loyalty, but us in the subsequent generations are watching this and remembering it.
I never want to hear any of you talk about “no loyalty to a company in this younger generation” again after the snide “not a charity” remark. We’re all acting on each other’s past behavior and our own incentives. There’s no incentive to be loyal to anyone or anything in this current incentive scheme.
The older fully vested pensioners evidently don’t even have empathy for their peers that were shafted 6 months before retirement, much less loyalty.
I am about to be laid off from APAC. I just turned 51. Sad that I couldn’t last longer here. Expected to take a deep pay cut
3M isn’t a charity.
A sick out makes a lot of sense. Everyone can take the Family Medical Leave at a coordinated timing - federally required.
I was 18 months shy of early retirement when I was eliminated in April. Even the outplacement coach I've been meeting with from Right Mgmt (an excellent resource for those impacted) was stunned 3M didn't offer a bridge to retirement. But that's 3M today. Get the pension eligible employees off the books ASAP.
I won’t make it to ‘retirement age’ at 3M. 3M loves to fire people in their 50’s when they’re at their peak earning potential and paying for their kid’s college and not yet ready to retire. I’m making plans now in my youth to be independent of 3M when I’m older because we all know 3M is making plans to be independent of me.
@vpo+1mWUXhqC
I think all employees stage a “walk out”. Pick a date.
13 JUNE will be a memorable date
I don't know why anyone not part of the pension class would want to retire from 3M. This isn't the 1970s anymore. The social contract that existed between employer and employee was torn up a long time ago. Do what's best for you. Mother Mining doesn't give a damn about you.
I always thought I would retire from 3M. Strong performer, high potential rated a couple times, exceeds expectations on EPR many times ... all of which put my pay consistently at or above market reference point. We'll I was laid off in 4Q22 at the age of 55+.
It's a cr-p shoot if you will get to retire from 3M. But the layoff was a blessing in disguise because my pension lump sum was about 30% higher than if I had retired from 3M this year.
I think all employees stage a “walk out”. Pick a time, date, amount of time and everyone turn off the computers, don’t answer the phones, extend the “changeover time” in the plants, don’t log into their “town halls”. Attend the town halls but stand up and turn your back like the executives have done to us. Power in numbers.
Realistically if one is more than five years away from retirement, then the answer is no.
Perhaps even five years is a stretch.
I would like to, but with 20 years to go I don’t believe this company will allow employees get to retirement
Pretty simple answer: No
I hope to get the severance payout so that I can retire. I am 53 this year
Because I sure don't.