How to Join UPI Retirees

Congratulations on your recent retirement! If you’ve held an academic position with a university served by UPI, you’re eligible to join our UPI Retirees Chapter. UPI works for you as a retiree. UPI keeps you informed about proposed legislation and organizes lobbying efforts.

 

When retirement benefits are threatened, UPI provides legal representation in the courts. And we promote adequate funding for higher education in Illinois at a time when our universities are fighting for their lives.

Membership dues are modest ($2 or less a month, depending on your pension). To have SURS deduct your dues, please complete the chapter membership form. (If you have Acrobat  Adobe, you can type the answers.) Print the form, sign it in pen, and mail it to the address on the form.

 

Below the membership form, you will see a second form that provides the opportunity to contribute to the Committee on Political Education (COPE), which helps candidates of either party who support UPI’s mission. Please consider contributing.

Renewing Your Retirees Chapter Membership

If you are already a Retirees Chapter member, thank you for joining. Please stay with us! 
This is a critical time to support the union, safeguard your benefits and fight to fund public higher education. Membership dues are still quite modest ($2 or less a month, depending on your pension).
 

Paying Dues by Deduction

If you pay by dues deduction through SURS, you don’t need to re-enroll. You have saved work for yourself and for UPI’s hard-working staff.

 

Have a question? Email your Retirees Board representative or atedwards36@gmail.com  

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Social Security and Pension Issues Alert!

Resources to learn about

Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) & Government Pension Offset (GPO) WEP & GPO Webinar Recording Link at https://youtu.be/TrK536pnZ9s  From Oct 31,2022 with four presenters:

• Meghan Stockhausen, Assistant Director of the AFT Government Relations Department, presented on the current state of legislation to repeal the WEP and GPO provisions of the Social Security Act. [Both those provisions negatively affect many IL teachers and state employees.]

• Alex Brown, Research Manager at NASRA (National Association of State Retirement Administrators) presented on "COLA Issues and Trends" in state public pensions.

• Melanie Myers, AFT, described how the OFT retirees organized around attempts to harm their COLAs.

• Roger Boudreau, President of AFT Retirees, spoke briefly, including about the chapter's 50-member task force on the WEP and GPO.
   

Get Involved

Check out all our volunteer opportunities here: https://go.aft.org/volunteer

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Sign up to textbank here: https://forms.gle/nsVqGNPYq7EwhWuF7

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Sign up for our textbank script training here: https://bit.ly/AFTHustleTrain

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WEP/GPO News and Op-Eds

• https://about.bgov.com/news/entitlement-spending-cap-plans-linked-by-gop-to-debt-limit-deal/
   

• https://prospect.org/economy/republicans-coming-for-your-social-security-medicare/
   

• https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/gop-plan-cut-social-security-medicare-2023-comes-view-rcna51865

• https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/82

• https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/1302
   

• WEP Calculator:  https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/anyPiaWepjs04.html

• GPO Calculator:  https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/gpo-calc.html

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