WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) announced that more than 1,600 workers and retirees in the Sheet Metal Workers Local Pension Plan based in Massillon will have the retirement benefits they earned restored in full, thanks to Brown’s Butch Lewis Act.                                                                                          

The United States Department of Labor (DOL), through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), has approved $28.8 million through a Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program for the pension plan. The fund was enacted as a part of the American Rescue Plan. Under the SFA program, cash payments will be made to financially troubled multiemployer pension plans to ensure that these plans can continue paying retirees’ benefits. Brown has been fighting for this fix for years and was able to secure key provisions based on his Butch Lewis Act in the American Rescue Plan. Brown named the legislation in memory of Butch Lewis, the former retired head of Teamsters Local 100 in southwest Ohio.

“Today, we are putting money back in the pockets of hard-working Ohioans and are keeping our promise to Sheet Metal Workers in Massillon, by restoring the retirement security they’ve earned,” said Brown. “After years of advocacy by workers, retirees, and small business owners in Ohio, Democrats in Congress and this Administration finally saved the pensions that union workers in Massillon earned over a lifetime, with no cuts. This pension fix will help local workers and the small businesses they work with to grow and continue providing living wages and dignified work for Ohioans.”

More than 850 retirees have been living with an up to 24 percent cut to their benefits since 2020. Receiving the SFA means that the Sheet Metal Workers Local Pension Plan will:

  • Restore retirees’ full earned benefit in their monthly checks moving forward
  • Receive $29 million and make retirees whole for the cuts to their benefits since 2020
  • Put their plan on the path to solvency going forward, protecting the benefits of active workers

For years, Brown led efforts to save these Ohioans’ pensions, touring the state to stand with Ohio retirees, workers and their families, and co-chairing a Congressional Committee on the pension crisis in 2018. Those efforts led to Brown’s Butch Lewis Act being included in the American Rescue Plan, which saved the pensions of more than 100,000 Ohioans.

About 10 million Americans participate in multiemployer pension plans and about 1.5 million of them are in plans that are quickly running out of money. Many of these troubled plans cover workers who are on the front lines of the COVID-19 public health crisis, such as trucking, food processing and grocery store workers. Even before the pandemic, workers, businesses, and retirees faced a crisis and were in dire need of help.

The Butch Lewis Act secured retirement benefits for workers and retirees in endangered pension plans for 30 years—with no cuts to earned benefits.

Brown’s Butch Lewis Act, which became law as part of the American Rescue Plan, will:

  • Keep multiemployer pension plans solvent and well-funded for 30 years—with no cuts to earned benefits of participants and beneficiaries;
  • Restore full benefits for retirees in plans that previously had to take cuts and increase the maximum Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) insurance amount; and
  • Require each plan that receives assistance file regular status reports with the PBGC and Congressional Committees, to prevent recurrence and protect retirees’ benefits.  

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