Pension Protection for Working Americans
Make no mistake, there are powerful forces trying to do away with people’s pensions, and we will continue to fight them on every front.
The fact is, working men and women contributed every nickel and penny they had contracted for, but as many as 13,000 companies did NOT make their owed payment into the Central States Pension Fund -- and had those companies fulfilled their obligations, those pension funds would be fine. It is simply preposterous to suggest that the working Americans who honored their contracts should be the ones to suffer for this corporate irresponsibility and be punished with the severe reduction of their pensions.
There are hundreds of pension funds around the country that are in similar situations because of the failure of companies and local governments to pay in the money for which they had contracted. We cannot permit laws that allow for this reckless irresponsibility to exist.
I am an original Co-Chair of the bipartisan Pension Protection for Working Americans Caucus, which serves as a hub in Congress for Members of Congress dedicated to issues of pension protection and educating colleagues on the subject. The other members include my fellow Co-Chair Congressman David McKinley (WV-01), Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (MI-12), Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18), Vicente Gonzalez (TX-15), Donald Norcross (NJ-01), Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), Tim Walz (MN-01), and Tim Ryan (OH-13) are also members.
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It’s Time for Congress to Protect America’s
Hard-Earned Pensions
Teamsters rally outside the U.S. Capitol in support of our legislation to protect hard-earned worker pensions.
Dear Friend,
House and Senate Democratic leaders have personally assured me that protecting America’s hard-earned pensions will be a top priority in their negotiations with Republicans to come to a 2018 budget agreement.
U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan will be joined by constituent Sherman Liimatainen, Vice President & Treasurer of the National United Committee to Protect Pensions, for President Donald Trump’s first address before a Joint Session of Congress. Liimatainen played a lead role in persuading U.S. Treasury to reject a plan that would have gutted the pensions of 400,000 working Americans.
Today, U.S. Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Rick Nolan and Cheri Bustos were joined by 38 of their colleagues in urging House Leadership to reject any proposal attacking the hard-earned pension benefits of retirees and workers added as a rider to any end-of-year legislation.
Last fall, retired Teamsters like me learned our pensions were going to be cut by as much as 70 percent. My fellow Teamsters and I thought these cuts were grossly unfair. As workers, we paid into our pension every paycheck, sacrificing raises in our negotiations so we could be safe and healthy in later life.
U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan today lauded the U.S. Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) recent decision to heed his call for a comprehensive review of the investment decisions of the Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund. In June, Minnesota Democratic Reps. Nolan, Peterson and McCollum joined more than 40 colleagues in a letter to GAO Comptroller General Gene Dodaro requesting the investigation following news reports of the apparent mishandling of the Central States Pension Fund investments.
Teamster members dodged deep pension cuts thanks to a Friday decision, but they remain no closer to a solution for the severely underfunded Central States Pension Fund.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday rejected the benefit cuts that the fund requested, handing a victory to hundreds of thousands of retired and working Teamsters who had protested the plan for months. It was the first test of a controversial law that gives trustees of distressed plans much broader authority to cut earned retirement benefits.
The U.S. Treasury Department has rejected a plan that would have drastically cut the pensions of more than a quarter million retirees around the country, including 15,000 here in Minnesota.
The announcement means that retired workers who paid into the Central States Pension Fund will not be forced to face pension cuts of up to 50 percent.
U.S. Repesentative Rick Nolan issued a statement regarding Friday's announcement saying the following:
The Treasury Department on Friday rejected a proposal by a pension fund to cut the payout for hundreds of thousands of truck drivers, construction workers and other service personnel, though the retirement plan’s financial headaches are far from over.
It is extremely rare for retirees to ever see reductions in their pension benefit. In most cases, such action is illegal. But a 2014 federal law made it possible for cuts to certain cash-strapped multiemployer plans. The Teamsters’ Central States’ proposed cuts would have slashed some members’ income by 50 percent or more.