Washington (Associated Press) election As the election nears, Democrats are trying to remind Pennsylvania’s union voters that many workers’ pensions have been preserved as part of a COVID-19 pandemic-era aid package.
The White House said as of Friday that pension savings for more than 1 million union workers and retirees would result. Butch Lewis ActIt became law in the spring of 2021.
This law: President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Planwould finally stop cuts to retirement benefits for 2 million workers and retirees across the country.
The program, named for a retired Ohio truck driver and Teamsters union leader who spent his later years fighting to prevent major cuts to the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund, established a special financial assistance program through which struggling multiemployer pension plans can apply for assistance from the Pension Guaranty Corporation, a federal agency that protects the retirement income of workers in defined benefit pension plans.
The Butch Lewis Act aims to delay the eventual collapse of approximately 200 multiemployer pension plans for 30 years, with many workers facing up to a 50% reduction in benefits, which will inflict significant financial harm on more than 2 million retired and soon-to-be retired Americans.
Biden administration officials, including Senior Advisor Gene Sperling, and a group of union members from the Bakers, Confectioners, Tobacco and Cereal Mills International Union, along with Sen. Bob Casey, were scheduled to travel to Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Friday to draw attention to the legislation.
Casey, a Democrat, is seeking reelection to the Pennsylvania Senate against Republican Dave McCormick. The Biden administration has been paying particular attention to the battleground state of Pennsylvania as the president seeks reelection. Mobilizing trade unionists At the polling station.
“Whether it’s Social Security, Medicare or a pension, workers who have earned a dignified retirement through decades of hard work and sacrifice should never have their benefits cut because of broken promises or policies that favor the wealthy over working families,” Biden said in a statement.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won over blue-collar workers with his 2016 victory and is looking to reap the rewards this year. division A conflict between union leaders who have supported Democratic candidates and rank-and-file members who may be swayed to vote Republican.
Rita Lewis, the widow of Butch Lewis, told The Associated Press that before the law was passed, union retirees she knew were “talking about having to sell their homes and move in with their kids.”
Lewis, who lives in West Chester, Ohio, and receives a restored income from her late husband’s pension, said she plans to vote for Biden in November because he has kept his promises to workers.
“President Biden and the Democrats have done exactly what they promised to do to restore pensions,” she said.
In 2016, she led a protest outside the Capitol calling for the passage of the Butch Lewis Act, saying, “A promise is a promise.”
Many multiemployer pension plans faced funding shortfalls during and after the Great Recession, when the plans had many more retirees than active workers. Corporate bankruptcies, withdrawals from pension plans, and investment losses from the stock market crashes of 2001 and 2008 led to significant declines in plan funding, according to the nonprofit Pension Rights Center.
While some workers’ pensions have been restored, there are still workers whose retirement benefits were cut during the Great Recession and whose pensions have not been restored.
For example, the estimation 20,000 workers Workers at Delphi, a subsidiary of General Motors, have been fighting for 15 years to recoup what they lost after GM filed for bankruptcy in 2009. The company, unlike its union members, said it would not assume the pension liabilities of Delphi workers after taking the issue all the way to Congress. United States Supreme CourtThe court dismissed their appeal, cutting off the retirees’ last legal remedy.
They are pushing for passage of the Susan Muffley Act, which would restore their benefits similar to the Butch Lewis Act, and is supported by the White House.
