Conversions to Cash Balance Plans . . .

I guess none of us are really surprised at what this article at GreenvilleOnline.com by Brian Tumulty for the Gannett News Service reports on IBM’s motives for converting to a cash balance pension plan in the 90’s: “Documents reveal IBM’s reason for pension-plan change: saving money.” The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois is expected to issue a ruling within weeks on charges that the new pension plan, instituted in mid-1999, and an earlier one that took effect in 1994, discriminates against workers based on age. However, here’s what U.S. District Judge G. Patrick Murphy is reported to have said at a hearing on the case: “I’m not a priest,” the judge observed at one of the hearings. “I’m not here to look into the souls of the IBM people . . .”