An ellipse swirled, beaming like a golden jewel, on the screen of Dan Johnston’s phone: the galaxy Andromeda, 2.5 million light-years from Earth, yet our nearest galactic neighbor, captured on Johnston’s telescope near the pool of his Hooksett condo.
Astronomy is an expensive love to pursue. But in two years, when Johnston plans to retire from his 32-year career in maintenance at Associated Grocers Northeast, formerly Associated Grocers of New England, he’ll have time and a pension on his side.
His dedication to the company rivals only the steadfastness of his marriage — 37 years in November, he said, standing outside the company’s distribution center in Pembroke on Tuesday.
There, on the “practice picket” line with the unionized colleagues he calls his brothers, his comrades, Johnston weathered a fine mist of rain to insist that the pension fund on which he’s hitched his retirement future continues to exist. In Associated Grocers’ contract negotiations with the Teamsters Local 633, the company stated its intention to withdraw from the pension fund and shift employees to private retirement options, according to Teamsters business manager Keith Judge.
“When I get out of here in two years, I still want to be stable. The idea of a pension is not to go backwards, if you will. It’s a fixed income. I don’t want to sell my house to live,” said Johnston, 62, of Hooksett.
Contract negotiations began on July 14, Judge said, with the Teamsters approaching Associated Grocers with a list of demands, ranging from safety to wage increases.
The only proposal Associated Grocers brought to the table was to withdraw its contributions from the pension fund, redistribute them as wage increases and, instead, direct workers to utilize private retirement accounts without offering 401k matches, according to Judge. The company agreed to some demands Judge described as “token” asks, but the Teamsters broke off negotiations on the second day when the company’s intention to withdraw from the pension fund became clear.
Associated Grocers could not be reached for comment on this story.
“At the end of the day, it was just gutting their retirement to fund their own raise, and the members, they didn’t want it,” Judge said.
Court documents show that Associated Grocers has explored the possibility of withdrawing from the pension fund since as early as September 2025. The company sued the New England Teamsters Pension Fund in June, after repeatedly requesting more information from the Teamsters about its liability obligations if it were to withdraw from the fund.
“I close this letter, consistent with my previous communications and AGNE’s ongoing interactions with AGNE employees, by reiterating that AGNE values its employees. AGNE continues to pursue a professional dialogue with Pension Fund Trustees, and other professionals with the best interests of AGNE’s employees in mind,” Michael Violette, Associated Grocers president and CEO, wrote in an email to the Teamsters dated Sept. 24, 2025.
The Teamsters are a general charter union representing 5,300 members in New Hampshire, including the state’s UPS drivers, police officers, Department of Public Works employees and more. When the union negotiates on behalf of its members, Judge explained, it sometimes mobilizes “practice pickets” as warning shots to show a company its commitment to a particular cause, in this case, workers’ pensions.
Judge expects the current demonstration to last through Thursday, a three-day foretaste of what could become a strike if Associated Grocers hasn’t met their demands by the time the current five-year contract expires in mid-October.
The countdown currently stands at 46 days.
“We told them we would see them in October,” Judge said. “The contract expires, and then, we’ll either have an agreement, or we’ll be on strike.”
The Teamsters subscribe to a multi-employer pension fund whereby Associated Grocers pays $3 an hour for every hour members work, up to 40 hours a week, amounting to an accrued benefit of $157 per month per year of service. If a member works ten years, then they’re eligible to collect, upon their retirement, an approximate monthly pension of $1,500.
Judge said the Teamsters’ pension fund had been in a critical state of decline for many years leading up to the Butch Lewis Act, which passed under President Joe Biden as part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act. Butch Lewis was designed to shore up beleaguered multiemployer plans so that pension funds could continue fulfilling their obligations to retired members, and the Teamsters’ fund was among those that benefited from federal relief.
Right now, the Teamsters’ fund is “100% funded,” Judge said. But its current financial health isn’t a permanent inoculation against future trouble.
“The pension is near and dear to all of our members. We’ve got people who have been here 30 years, and they’re depending on a pension for their retirement. We’ve got people who are just starting, and they came here because they know it’s a union job, they know there’s a pension, and it’s like a light at the end of the tunnel,” Judge said.
Johnston is one of those longtime members. He works 8-hour shifts six days a week at the distribution center, tinkering with high lifts, jacks, chargers, refrigeration units and other pieces of equipment. When he arrived on Tuesday morning, a machine was down, and he spent an hour and a half troubleshooting with the manufacturer over the phone.
Soon, these long days and weeks will end. Unlike his parents, who worked at the Manchester Millyard and entered their retirement without a prayer beyond collecting Social Security, he’ll have his pension to rely on.
He said he learned from an old guard of workers who fought arduously when the Teamsters last staged a major strike at Associated Grocers in the 1970s.
“Brotherhood. Everyone stuck together when we had outsiders come in and try to take some of our work. We stuck together to make sure that they knew it was our work. It was a kind of bond, and hopefully we can keep that bond today. I think we’re doing good,” he said.
