WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senator
Sherrod Brown (D-OH) joined Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh to announce that the roughly 2,000 workers and retirees in the United Iron
Workers’ (UIW) Local
#17 pension plan 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
$48.9 million through a Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program for Local
17. 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 such 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.
Retirees
in Local 17 had their pensions cut by as much as 60% in 2017, and they’ve been
living with those cuts since then. Receiving the SFA means that Local 17 will:
- Restore
retirees’ full earned benefit in their monthly checks moving forward,
- Receive
$18 million to make retirees whole for the cuts to their benefits since
2017,
- 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.
“President
Biden’s American Rescue Plan will deliver $48.9 million in Special Financial
Assistance to the Iron Workers Local 17 Pension Fund that ensures these 1,900
construction workers and retirees covered by this plan will receive the
retirement benefits they have earned,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh,
chair of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s Board of Directors. “This
assistance will deliver the secure retirement these workers were promised in
return for many years of hard work.”
“This is a lifechanging moment for
thousands of active Ironworkers, retirees, and their families. Our union has
fought for changes to the multiemployer pension system for decades to ensure
Ironworkers in every one of our plans have the same opportunity to retire with
dignity. Senator Sherrod Brown and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur have stood with
us every step of the way – they have been champions for working people
everywhere, but especially for the members and retirees of Ironworkers Local
17,”
said Eric Dean President International Association of Bridge, Structural,
Ornamental, and Reinforcing Iron Workers.
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, grocery store workers,
and others. Even before the pandemic, workers, businesses, and retirees faced a
crisis and were in dire need of our 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 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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