Government paves way for multi-employer pension plan cuts
Source: AP-Excite
By ANDREW TAYLOR
WASHINGTON (AP) The government is preparing to cut benefits over the next few years for hundreds of thousands of retirees covered by underfunded multi-employer private pension plans.
The Obama administration announced on Wednesday that well-known mediator Kenneth Feinberg review applications from pension plans under a law passed last year. The law would cut benefits as a last ditch means to stave off insolvency of troubled plans such as the huge Teamsters Central State Fund.
The new law earned mixed reviews from the unions whose members are covered by such defined benefit plans, including construction workers, Teamster truckers and food service workers.
The Teamsters and AARP opposed the law when it passed last year as part of a governmentwide spending bill. But other unions saw it as a solution that was preferable to plans becoming insolvent and getting a federal bailout.
FULL story at link.
FILE - In this July 17, 2014 file photo, attorney Kenneth Feinberg testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. The government is preparing to cut benefits over the next few years for hundreds of thousands of retirees covered by underfunded multi-employer private pension plans. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew named Feinberg, an attorney, to review applications for fairness. Feinberg has administered the compensation funds for claims from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and from families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke, file)
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150617/us--pensions-cuts-7da4545f2e.html
Faux pas
(14,681 posts)while the poor man pays the band
valerief
(53,235 posts)kelly1mm
(4,733 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)According to PBGC projections, approximately 150 to 200 plans, covering 1.5 million workers and retirees, could run out of money within the next 20 years. The PBGC estimates that roughly one-third of the affected participants are in two large plans in the trucking and mining industries.
WHY ARE SOME MULTIEMPLOYER PLANS UNDERFUNDED?
There are a variety of reasons for funding shortfalls in certain multiemployer pension plans. Changes in the economy have resulted in a dramatic decline in union jobs, leaving many plans with many more retirees than active workers. This, together with company bankruptcies and withdrawals from plans, has caused a significant decrease in employer contributions to plans. In addition, investment losses in 2001 and again in the 2008 stock market collapse greatly reduced the amount of money in plans.
- See more at: http://www.pensionrights.org/publications/fact-sheet/facts-about-multiemployer-pension-plan-funding#HowWellFunded
aggiesal
(8,918 posts)In Europe, companies required to deposit money into a pension fund, are not allowed
to touch that pension fund. It has to be administered by a 3rd party.
This way the money is gone from the company/corporations coffers for good.
While here in the US, companies intentionally underfund their pension fund because companies
are sold and it no longer becomes their problem. If you're company over funds their pension, they
become prime target by those companies that under fund their pensions so that they can raid the
newly over-funded company's pension fund.
We have a messed up system.
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)I'm afraid that politicians are unconcerned with what happens to us peasants.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)Certainly there are NO "Too big to fail" pension plans. Grab your ankles! Here comes your solvency bailout!
fredamae
(4,458 posts)Where does that Infamous Buck Stop, again?
Snotcicles
(9,089 posts)out letters over the past few months now about how we will be getting hosed.
Thank You George Miller D-Ca.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)unions contracts called for and that they are deposited in private accounts by the multiple employers (who have not paid in what they promised). The companies control the private account. Am I wrong?
We saw this with contracts signed with US Steel.
former9thward
(32,025 posts)There are no private accounts. Companies pay the union pension benefits on a per hour based on how many hours members worked for them. Many of these funds have been poorly managed and have lost money.
Response to former9thward (Reply #13)
jwirr This message was self-deleted by its author.
Omaha Steve
(99,660 posts)Everything old is new again.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)workers took them to court the court did very little about it.
bl968
(360 posts)Simple poison pill
In any publicly traded corporation, LLC, or partnership which has abrogated their pension responsibilities; No raises, golden parachutes, executive bonus, stock options, or shareholder dividends, or other forms of deferred compensation shall be permitted or issued for the next 25 years. All company profits shall be used towards making the pension beneficiaries past, current, and future whole.
It was good enough for the Republicans to bind the USPS with this, so it is karmic justice to turn it loose on for profit companies.
turbinetree
(24,703 posts)Every corporation starting with Airlines, which I am quite familiar with always, and I mean always have under funded there pension programs.
Just about every corporation in America has under funded there Defined Pension Plans--------why do you think they went to the proverbial 401K scheme, and that really is a scheme ( no protections--your on your own with Wall Street-----------just imagine Social Security)
They would file there:
www.sec.gov/answers/form10k.htm
They would take the pension money they were suppose to be putting into the plan to meet the negotiated contract requirement of the contracted worker and they would then take our share of the pension money which we paid into the plan every pay check and then use the pension money fund as a piggy bank to show the Sec 10K filing in the prospectus as being funded.
The prospectus is the key---------always
We would have these big meetings in the hanger and they would get up and tell us the funds were protected and that the funds were all there-------------no they weren't.
The only way they were protected was the ERISA laws and the PBGC----------apparently not anymore--------------thanks a lot for nothing
www.erisa.com
pbgc.gov
They were being used by the likes of Carl Icahn, Frank Lorenzo, Steven Wolf, Seth E. Schofield, for example and any other CEO that came through the door.
www.nytimes.com/1990/...pact-with-agency-assures-pension-payments.html
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/09/nwa-s19.html
www.nytimes.com/1992/10/26/business/twa-pension-fund-dispute.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/01/united-airlines-employees-shorted-pensions-agency-errors_n_1122797.html
And the Unions would scream and the courts all of them would say basically nothing
http://cf.alpa.org/mec/aaa/docs/newmectoday/arc/airwaves/aw0107/Negot0701.pdf
www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/EC-Statements/Protecting..
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/pension_fund_capitalism.html
And now we have this corporate guru come in and say this is the plan --------------take it or leave it
He is going to make critical decisions on individuals such as myself when it comes to my pensions that was PROMISED.
I paid for and took big cuts in my pensions when they were turned over the PBGC because the airlines used the bankruptcy laws to shirk there god damn responsibilities.
And like any and other corporation filing for bankruptcy its for one thing-----------gut pensions--------they never FULLY funded the plans-----------they shoved it unto the entire public, they placed the funds into the government, and the government would go to the same jerks that broke the pension fund and make a deal--------you that have never worked in the industry.
They were defaulted, and robbed, and this guru , he is going to say, just like he did down in the Gulf, basically, he could not and would not hold BP accountable to lost lively hoods-------take it or leave it-------a real true welfare protecting corporate czar.
Over 15,000 airline employees were affected by 9/11, they were laid-off (me ------United 2001), fired, didn't have enough seniority etcetera ............ have not been recalled to jobs once held, and some of us never were ever able to file a claim for losing our lively hoods and now our pensions are under attack, the ones we paid into with our labor of making a corporation money and for us to have money then and into the future------------our last acts of livelihood that we paid for, for our families to live on after some us are gone
If anyone thinks that voting for a republican and DINO'S is going to solve your problems -----------------just look at what they can and will do with planned your retirement -------------they just don't care.
INdemo
(6,994 posts)and allows the pensions to be robbed..
I am a union retiree and let me tell you our fund is fine. But what happen and it was very simple..The government came up with a formula that when followed actually puts well funded plan in the red. The guide line have actually have those that will retire in1- 10 years and actually have them in the same grouping as those current retiree.
This guy is so REpublican.
Hillary will follow the same pattern as Obama as kiss the feet of the Republicans who push this kind of bull shit legislation to benefit the employers...
Omaha Steve
(99,660 posts)A change in administrator caused a lock up and they couldn't move their funds. As the value dropped there was nothing the workers could do. A friend in Omaha lost her retirement at age 57. She is still working last I knew at Pets Mart in her mid 60's.