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One More Time, Say ‘Pension Security |
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By Richard Slawson, Executive-Secretary
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 The United States Congress is close to making a decision that
will a have life-changing effect on working Americans -- they will be
voting on Pension Reform legislation. Two pieces of legislation, Senate
Bill 1783 and House of Representatives Bill 2830, both deal with the
changes that everyone agrees are needed to secure retirement benefits
for future retirees who participate in both defined contribution and
defined benefit retirement plans.
After being lobbied by business, labor and retiree organizations,
Congress has a huge responsibility in crafting a final bill in
Conference Committee that would be signed by the President.
There are a tremendous number of issues in these two bills, including
both retirement plan changes and tax alterations that will address
retirement plan problems that have been created by changes in
employment perceptions, corporate decisions, factual changes in
American industrial industry and court decisions based on the
Employment Retirement Income Security Act. Both bills are supported by
the National Coordinating Committee for Multi-employer Plans, which is
a labor-management group whose membership includes many, if not all, of
our International Unions and our craft retirement plans.
I spoke to Randy DeFrehn, the NCCMP Executive Director, inquiring about
the prospects of the conference committee actually accomplishing
something before the session of Congress ends. He has been working hard
to maintain the pressure on the conferees to keep the provisions in the
final bill that our multi-employer plans need to react to the ups and
downs of investments and the increased premiums to the Pension Benefit
Guarantee Corporation that many “single employer” retirement plan
problems created by corporate greed have caused.
DeFrehn noted that Democratic Congressman Rob Andrews from New Jersey
had been the leader in the House of Representatives in getting the
Democrats’ votes to pass HR 2830. There were only 70 Democratic House
votes for the measure -- most due to Andrews. The rest of the Democrats
in the House want a pension reform bill, however, as DeFrehn informed
me they had concerns about “single-employer” retirement plan language
in the present bill.
He said that much of their concerns can be handled in the Conference
Committee and this was too important to hold up HR 2830. Andrews had
supported the bill, he said, because it contained the changes that our
Multi-employer Plans want and that he has been a supporter of Building
Trades Crafts’ issues during his years in Congress. As well, five of
our Los Angeles and Orange County area Congressmembers – Democrats Joe
Baca and Jane Harman and Republicans Buck McKeon, David Drier and Dana
Rohrabacher voted for HR 2830 and their votes helped to move the
legislation forward.
Although their votes were for different reasons and support different
constituents (the Democrats voted with Labor involved in
Multi-employers Retirement Plans and the Republicans voted with
business in providing tax relief and funding deficiencies given
extensions of up to 10 years), it was approved.
The Conference Committee should be meeting during the week of July 17
so that they can resolve the differences - and there are many - in the
two bills before this Congress adjourns. This is an opportunity for our
unions and our members to act in support of this legislation. The House
Conference Committee is being led by Republican Buck McKeon, Chair of
the Committee on Education & the Workforce. His district is in
Santa Clarita.
McKeon is no friend of Labor. He has only a 7 percent lifetime
labor-friendly voting record. He even voted against the 2005 Pension
Protection bill that provided assistance to the United Airlines
employees and retirees participating in their “single employer”
retirement plan during United’s bankruptcy. However, he is pushing the
Conference Committee to come to agreement and because this is vital to
maintaining our strong Pension Plans, we can contact him to remind him
that Californians and our members who are his constituents are
expecting results.
You can help by calling his California office at (661) 274-9688. Tell
them that you want the Pension Reform Conference Committee to agree on
a final bill for passage because you are a participant in a
Multi-employer Pension Plan and it is needed for pension security.
The work for fair treatment for our Pension Plans has taken over five
years and we are too close to have this session of Congress end without
legislation enacted.
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