Some Union Pension Cuts Likely As New Federal Rules Take Shape

The cuts would likely be devastating for hundreds of thousands of retirees. (Teamsters for a Democratic Union)

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17873/some_union_pension_cuts_likely_as_new_federal_rules_take_shape

BY BRUCE VAIL

The likelihood that hundreds of thousands of union members nationwide won’t be receiving the full pension benefits promised to them is becoming clearer as federal regulatory agencies in Washington, D.C., move to implement new pension legislation quietly approved in the final weeks of 2014.

As reported by Cole Stangler in In These Times late last year, legislators rushed to amend a 40-year-old law governing private-sector multiemployer pension plans as part of broader budget legislation that was considered “must pass” by both Republicans and Democrats. The new law, which has been the subject of heated debate in Washington for more than a decade, is aimed specifically at union pension plans facing long-term insolvency and gives the trustees of such plans new freedom to cut benefits to retirees as a way to reverse the declining fortunes of those plans. President Barack Obama signed the measure, called the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 (MPRA), into law on December 16.

“These people [affected pensioners] don’t know what’s going to happen to them” as a result of cuts authorized by the law, says Bob Amsden of the newly formed Wisconsin Committee to Protect Pensions. A Teamster truck driver for 33 years, Amsden says he’s now in danger of losing a substantial portion of his own pension, and that hundreds of thousands of other union members are facing similar cuts.

There are numerous unanswered question on how exactly the MPRA will be implemented in the coming months by the Department of the Treasury and other federal agencies, but a troubling early sign for the future comes from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, which has compiled a list of the 100 union pension plans deemed likely to face benefit cuts.

FULL story at link.

BRUCE VAIL
Bruce Vail is a Baltimore-based freelance writer with decades of experience covering labor and business stories for newspapers, magazines and new media. He was a reporter for Bloomberg BNA's Daily Labor Report, covering collective bargaining issues in a wide range of industries, and a maritime industry reporter and editor for the Journal of Commerce, serving both in the newspaper's New York City headquarters and in the Washington, D.C. bureau.