I think a young person should ask some thoughtful questions about how the retirement process works, if there is a pension, how well the pension is funded, etc.  

Most pension schemes have been long on promises of returns and short on adjustments to reality in terms of life expectancy, making them only partially solvent from an actuarial point of view.  If you have a big bunch of guys hitting retirement and fewer guys replacing them, the money and opportunities might be wonderful up front but how much of your check will go to retirement and is that ‘your’ retirement or pooled retirement based on a formula where you might be funding retiree payments to a greater extent than you get in return.

It’s happening to newer teachers in IL, golden retirement if you make the cutoff and higher % of your pay to the pension system for newer teachers for way less retirement benefits in the new second class retirement scheme in an effort to keep the pension system solvent for the first class retirees without outside transfers of other money.  If you are the one soaking the newbies to get that retirement it’s a win but if you are the newbie I would be asking some questions before committing.

I have zero idea of how that works in a union but it’s a monetary reality that there are finite retirement dollars to pay out for pension funds.