A former union leader at the NewPage Port Hawkesbury mill says the current union should do more to help pensioners who were recently told they may each have to pay back thousands of dollars in pension overpayments.

Lionel Forsyth, a former president with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, said the union should pay for a lawyer to fight for the hundreds of former mill workers who have been hit with a combined $5-million bill because of a mistake made by the former administrator of their pension plan.

"I'm saying the union should represent the unionized brothers and sisters that are now facing financial devastation," Forsyth told CBC News.

"I think they should represent them with the lawyers' fees."

Approximately 250 workers who retired early from the paper mill in the Port Hawkesbury area decided to take up-front pension payments they would begin paying back at the age of 65.

The workers were already living with reduced payments because the NewPage Port Hawkesbury mill pension plan had been underfunded.

In November, they received letters stating the former pension administrator, Aon, made a calculation error when figuring out payments and had paid them too much.

Aon asked to pay for mistake

Morneau Shepell Ltd., the current pension plan administrator, is asking Aon to pay for the mistake.

If the two sides can't agree, the matter may go to court.

"The administrator has lawyered up and they are going after Aon, who have lawyered up," said Forsyth.

"What I think, I really believe should happen is, the union should go to bat and say, 'We will cover your legal fees.' They have lawyers on retainers for everything else."

Archie MacLachlan, the current vice-president of Local 972 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, said he doesn't think the union needs to spend its members' money on lawyers.

"The pension administrator Morneau Shepell discovered this mistake and they are the experts in pension. They are the best ones to fight the fight if it goes to court to win the case for the pension plan," he told CBC News.

MacLachlan said because the Canada Revenue Agency has determined Aon made a mistake, he hopes the matter will be settled out of court and pensioners will be off the hook.