I am receiving a pension from the US subsidiary of a foreign corporation. Can another subsidiary (in another country of the same corporation hire me on contract without impacting my pension at the other subsidiary?
Thank you for your question.There are no US federal laws prohibiting private persons from working for *any* private business if that worker happens to also be collecting a pension from another former employer. That would almost certainly violate our Constitutionally-protected freedom of contract.I doubt that there could be any local Illinois laws prohibiting such employment during retirement. Otherwise, a LOT of those greeters at Wal-Mart would not be working there, because to do so would compromise their existing private pension benefits. Such would also run afoul of the Constitution.It's not like a retired person is getting disability income replacement payments--those are based on the theory that the person cannot work. To tell an insurance carrier that you are 100% disabled and UNABLE to work, then to GO TO WORK under any normal arrangement, might be prosecuted as insurance fraud.Federal laws governing pensions, like ERISA, deal with making sure the funds are actually funded and protecting workers from those funds being spent for other-than-pension purposes. These functions of ERISA are not served a bit by making a worker lose all or part of a pension benefit *if* he or she worked for a different subsidiary of the same behemoth business, but making some other worker whose retirement job was NOT with a subsidiary.Unless there is some attempt to resume working in a highly-regulated industry like airline piloting after a mandatory retirement age is reached, I cannot think of any setting where the law would require different treatment for separate post-retirement employment income from one job, when the worker happens to have a pension benefit...regardless of whether the pension comes from a different subsidiary of the "golden years" employer, or just any other completely separate business.Thank you.BAB.5
Hi, just one clarification. I have been told that I cannot work for the same company I am receiving a pension from (more than 40 hours a month). Is this true? And second, based on your answer there would be no rule to prevent me from working for another subsidiary. That is I receive a pension from a US company and want to work for the Canadian company. Both are incorporated in their countries and owned by the same European corporation. Correct? Many thanks.
Well, there are limitations of the law, and there are limitations of company policy. Subsidiaries often duplicate their internal policies among the brother/sister companies.My answer is based on two truly separate subsidiaries. It is quite different to be re-hired by the very same company through which the pension is funded.There is also a difference between being hired as an employee (salary or hourly wages) and being engaged as an independent contractor. Independent contractor status--at least when it is not a sham of de facto employment disguised to cheat on taxes and workers' compensation and unemployment premiums--does not implicate pension benefits at all. The contractor is on his or her own whether or not to set up some sort of qualified money pension plan.There are too many other factors at play for me to give you legal advice on this (besides the obstacle of the Terms of Service. Among other things, I know a bit about Canada but nothing about its retirement and pension laws.