Approximately 4,000 pensioners and employees of the former National Trust Co. say they continue to wait for a fair and equitable response from the Bank of Nova Scotia on their $160 million pension surplus that is being withheld.

For the past three years, The Association for the Equitable Recovery of the National Trust Pension Surplus has attempted to negotiate with the bank. In June 1997, Scotiabank acquired National Trust, with over 1,000 leaving or forced to leave their jobs. Numerous employees were forced to take early retirement thereby relying solely on a reduced National Trust pension since they were unable to receive Canada Pension Plan benefits until some years into the future.

AFTER has been pressing Scotiabank to commence negotiations over the surplus. Scotia has taken the stance that it is bank policy not to negotiate while a matter is before the court; referring to an ongoing case between Monsanto and a group of its former employees. Both AFTER and Scotiabank have intervenor status in that case, but AFTER says there is absolutely nothing preventing the bank from taking the initiative to deal with the matter now. AFTER believes that the bank is simply hiding behind the other case, meanwhile benefiting from the over-funded plan.

Representatives of AFTER, who are also Scotiabank shareholders, will travel to Vancouver for Scotiabank’s annual meeting on March 5 to raise their case again.

AFTER spokesperson, Robert Smallhorn, says “our group strongly believes that pension plans are trusts created solely for the benefit of employees and should not to be used by corporations as profit centres or bonus schemes for their executives. If both employer and employees pay into a plan, one could argue that any plan surplus should be shared by both”, he stated.