Union files lawsuit against DuPont over pensions

A union representing DuPont Co. workers has filed a class-action lawsuit claiming the company has failed to correct miscalculations of pension benefits for employees who retired on or after Aug. 1 last year.

The International Brotherhood of DuPont Workers filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Richmond on behalf of five people who recently retired, or soon will retire, from four DuPont plants, including the company's Spruance plant in Chesterfield County.

The lawsuit states that pension benefits for those employees were miscalculated starting about Aug. 1 after DuPont outsourced management of its pensionplan payments to Convergys, an Ohio-based human-resources and billing-services firm.

The lawsuits says Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont has acknowledged a problem with the pension calculations in letters to some employees but has not corrected it. The union could not say for sure how many employees' pensions have been affected, but it estimated that the number could be in the hundreds.

The lawsuit seeks a court order setting a date by which DuPont must correct the problem and pay the correct benefits with interest.

"All we want is our members to get the pension benefits to which they are entitled, and get it when they are entitled to it, and not at some distant date in the future," said Kenneth Henley, a lawyer for the union.

A spokeswoman for the company's Spruance site, Lisa Randall, said yesterday that the company was aware that a lawsuit had been filed.

"The company has been diligently addressing these issues, which arose as the result of a transition to a new humanresources management system," she said. "We have assured employees and retirees that, to the extent errors have occurred, corrected pension calculations and payments will be made. DuPont is committed to ensuring that all DuPont employees and retirees receive the pay and benefits to which they are entitled."

Plaintiffs also include employees at DuPont sites in Philadelphia and Kentucky, where hourly workers are represented by unions affiliated with the IBDW.

"Richmond is a big part of this because of all the people affected by layoffs," Henley said.

DuPont announced in May that it was planning to eliminate 450 to 500 jobs from its Spruance plant in Chesterfield -- almost 20 percent of the site's work force -- because the recession has hurt demand for its products.

About 300 union workers signed up for voluntary severance as part of the work-force reduction, and most of them are pension-eligible, said Donny Irvin, treasurer of the Spruance plant's Ampthill Rayon Workers union, which is affiliated with the IBDW.

Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or .