Teamsters Local 1932 Holiday Open House Gets Real: 80% of Near-Retirement Workers Lack a Retirement Plan

Standing in a union hall filled with families lining up for free photos with Santa on Dec. 3, Teamsters Local 1932 Principal Officer Randy Korgan said the most urgent issue facing Inland Empire workers isn’t holiday spending — it’s whether they will be able to retire at all.

“Now you see a very small percentage of workers that can actually retire,” Korgan said. “More than 80% of workers in the workforce do not have a retirement vehicle upon retiring at this given point right now. It is a shocking, absolutely shocking statistic.”

Korgan said too many people who spend decades on the job are being pushed out just when they should be able to slow down.

“People get into their 50s or early 60s and inevitably what happens is you run into a health issue that then forces you to retire from the job that you’ve been doing for a very long time,” he said. “The vast majority of the workforce, even though they should be ready to retire, are not ready. And it’s not their fault; it’s because the employers have not built the plans nor the pathways for their very workers to have what they need at that time.”

“When they get to that older age and they can’t do the job anymore, they just turn them out and get a younger person in,” Korgan said. “It’s almost like discarding workers. We’re seeing this attitude from employers and it has to change.”

He said the consequences are severe.

“Usually what happens is they end up on some form of public assistance,” Korgan said. “They may be disabled in a way where they’re not completely unable to work, but they clearly can’t keep doing the job they’ve done for 30 or 40 years. That leads to housing insecurity and dramatically changes their life.”

Korgan was especially critical of how 401(k) plans have replaced traditional pensions.

“Here’s a shocking statistic, the way I understand it,” he said. “More than 85% of workers who have a 401(k) available to them use it as a retirement vehicle. First off, it shouldn’t be a retirement vehicle — it’s a savings plan. But it has now become the primary retirement vehicle in America, and that’s a mistake.”

He said that for most workers, those savings are wiped out before they ever retire.

“When those workers get to the point of retirement, more than 80% of them have to draw it down to zero,” Korgan said. “In other words, they have to completely empty the bucket of their 401(k) before retirement because of one of three reasons: a death in the family, a job loss, or health care expenses.”

“How is it a retirement vehicle if it’s my own money and I’m working for an employer? That’s a savings plan,” he said. “There absolutely needs to be a commitment from employers to take care of their workers up until the day they retire, and to make sure that once they do retire, they’re in a good place.”

Korgan pointed to defined benefit pensions and meaningful employer-funded retirement plans as models that “have proven to be beneficial to the working class upon the point of retirement.”

Against that backdrop, the union’s recent work with young people, he said, is about building a different future from the one many older workers are facing now.

Earlier this school year, on Nov. 6, Teamsters Local 1932 hosted a career day at its training center that brought in more than 1,200 students from over 40 Inland Empire schools across 13 school districts.

“There were more than 50 jobs that they were introduced to, Teamster union jobs in the region, jobs that you could buy a home with, you know, the good-paying jobs,” Korgan said.

He said the event was designed with the reality in mind that most Inland Empire students will not immediately head to college.

“A lot of high schoolers think, what am I going to do as soon as I graduate?” he said. “From what I understand, 82% of kids in the Inland Empire are not going to college and therefore they’re going to get in the job market. There’s nothing wrong with that. We just have to get them connected to good jobs.”

Employers at the event included UPS and public-sector agencies.

“We had UPS here,” Korgan said. “You had the county here with a number of positions — professional positions, public works positions, jobs working for the water department.”

For many public agencies — cities and the county — representatives were on hand to explain what it takes to get into those careers, he said, citing Stater Brothers’ warehouse and its operation as another example.

Students’ reactions, Korgan added, showed how little exposure many have had to stable, family-supporting work.

“Hearing a high school student say, ‘I didn’t realize there were this many good jobs that we could connect to,’” he said. “They were really blown away that there were other opportunities that they had not been exposed to. Hearing that multiple times from multiple high school students was very impactful. It meant we hit a home run with our event.”

School districts represented at the career day included San Bernardino, Redlands, Fontana, Colton and Rancho Cucamonga.

Districts or schools interested in future events can contact the Teamsters Local 1932 Training Center.

While the career day looks toward students’ futures, the union’s Holiday Open House — where the interview took place — reflects the present-day struggles and solidarity of working families.

“If you look around, you see the kids getting a picture with Santa and Mrs. Claus instead of having to go to the mall and pay for a picture, you can get one here for free if you’re a member,” Korgan said. “They’re definitely not cheap.”

He said the gathering is as much about connection as it is about celebration.

“It also builds camaraderie and brings our members and their families to a common space where we have common issues to face,” he said. “It gives families a day to celebrate, knowing that the holidays are here, and a day where the kids get in the jumper or the maze or play the games and just enjoy themselves for a bit. It turns into a nice little family event.”

Those “common issues,” he said, include health care costs and keeping wages ahead of inflation.

“Affordable health care, or access to health care, is always an issue — something that we’re always striving to make sure our members have the best access available,” Korgan said. “We consistently work on that, as well as making sure that their jobs, and the jobs we represent them in, can sustain an economic future where they can afford to buy homes and goods and services in the area and keep up with inflation and the economic conditions of the region.”

He also urged caution around automation and AI, particularly in logistics.

“You’ve got to be very careful, number one, about getting rid of your own job, and number two, most importantly, about the safety factor of eliminating who would be overseeing a safe environment,” he said. “You put a big rig full of products going down the freeway and you have a driverless vehicle — I don’t know, I don’t want my family on the road next to that.”

“Some people would say it’s safer than human beings. I’m sorry, but I’m going to trust a human being behind the wheel,” he added. “Sometimes you don’t realize what you’ve got until you’ve lost it — then who’s there to pick up the pieces? Computer.”

Looking into 2026, Korgan said the union will continue pushing for better health care, safer workplaces and real retirement paths, while maintaining events that reflect its role in the broader community.

“Our annual event that’s massive here, which we get four or five thousand people attending, is the car show on April 11th,” he said. “Looking forward to seeing everybody here. The general public, not just our members, are all welcome to attend.”

Korgan said the car show also serves as a major fundraiser for the union’s charity fund, which primarily supports Youth Helpers. The nonprofit uses the money to send kids to camp in Big Bear and to run programs for teens and younger students that, he said, “bring good awareness not just on unions, but on becoming a responsible adult when they get there.”

From sounding the alarm on a retirement crisis to guiding students toward union careers and investing in local youth, Korgan said Teamsters Local 1932 intends to keep its San Bernardino hall a place where working people in the Inland Empire can gather, be heard and fight for a more secure future.