What happens to your
pension after you retire?

Working after your pension begins

If you are receiving a pension from the OPSEU Pension Plan and start working again, who you work for may affect your pension. If you work for an employer who does not contribute to the Plan, your pension is not affected. If you are re-employed or engaged  by an employer who contributes to the Plan, the impact on your pension depends on your salary and whether or not you re-join the Plan. It is your responsibility to inform a participating employer that you are currently receiving a pension from OPTrust.

Without membership: Your monthly pension is subject to an earnings ceiling each calendar quarter (e.g. January - March), if you are re-employed or engaged by an employer who contributes to the Plan and you do not re-join the Plan.

Your employment earnings maximum is determined by subtracting your quarterly OPTrust pension income from your final quarterly pre-retirement earnings. The difference between these two figures is the maximum amount you can earn in a calendar quarter from re-employment before we reduce your pension. This amount is provided on your confirmation statement from OPTrust. If you are unsure of the limit, please call OPTrust.

If you do exceed your maximum for the quarter, we will reduce future pension payments by the amount that you have exceeded your maximum. We will not recover more than your pension payment amount for the calendar quarter.

Example: Determining your re-employment maximum earnings

Note: we use your gross earnings and gross pension in our calculations. Your re-employment earnings maximum is also expressed as a gross amount. When your employer reports your quarterly re-employment earnings to OPTrust, they report the amounts paid to you on the pay dates that fall within the calendar quarter.

With membership: Depending on the nature of your re-employment and your age, you may have the option to re-join the Plan. If you re-join, your pension stops immediately. While you are making contributions to the Plan, you are accruing additional pension credit so when your employment ends, we will re-calculate your pension.

OPTrust will add the additional credit you earned during your re-employment to your previous credit whether it was a Factor 80, Factor 90 or 60/20 provision or age 65. OPTrust then re-calculates your pension at the end of your re-employment period to include the additional credit you accrued. However, if you were previously receiving a reduced pension, your new pension amount will be actuarially adjusted to take into account any pension payments you have already received.