Panelists differ over cure for ill union pension plans
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Panelists
deeply immersed in the financial prob-
lems of multi-employer pension plans
remain split over how to fix them.
“Multi-employer plans are a ticking
time bomb,” warned House Education
and the Workforce Committee Chair-
man John Kline (R-Minn) at a May 1
forum sponsored by Bloomberg Gov-
ernment.
Kline said multi-employer pension
plans are on an unsustainable path, with
$818 billion in liabilities and only $397
billion in assets. More than 10.5 million
people participate in such pension
plans, including 3.5 million retirees.
“Do the math,” Kline said. “There is
an urgent need to enact bold reforms.”
Most of the panelists at the forum
nixed finding any federal aid for the mi-
nority of failing pension plans. The
chairmen of the relevant GOP-run U.S.
House committees have flatly said such
aid won’t pass. They agreed a fix is
needed, but warned that their colleagues
will need a lot of education on the issue.
Kline said many of his colleagues are
OSEA needs help to bring free books
to children in east Multnomah Co.
The Oregon School Employees As-
sociation (OSEA) is working with the
nonprofit organization First Book to get
access to free books for children in east
Multnomah County.
First Book is a Washington, D.C.-
based social enterprise that furnishes
brand-new, high-quality, popular chil-
drens’ books to schools or programs
where they might otherwise have diffi-
culty acquiring them. Founded in 1992,
First Book has distributed more than
100 million books targeted for young-
sters from birth to 18 years of age.
The American Federation of Teach-
ers (AFT) — of which OSEA is an af-
filiate — has partnered with First Book
to hold more than 10 “book truck”
events in communities across the coun-
try. One was held in Turner, Oregon,
last January that benefited students at
Cascade, Jefferson and North Santiam
school districts.
Vicki Nelson, president of OSEA’s
Centennial School District Chapter 113,
is spearheading the campaign that hope-
fully will bring 40,000 to 45,000 books
to east Multnomah County, which is
home to Centennial, Reynolds, David
Douglas, Parkrose and Gresham-Bar-
low school districts. But other groups
such as My Father’s House, SnowCap,
Human Solutions, the Boys and Girls
Club of America, and others, stand to
benefit as well.
To make it all happen, Nelson first
must register 2,000 people with First-
Book by July 31. Once that is done, the
book order will be placed, and then
scheduled for delivery sometime in late
August. To register, you must be in-
volved in some way with either a Title 1
or Title 1-eligible school program; with
a program where at least 70 percent of
the children are from low-income fam-
ilies; with a program primarily serving
children in military families; or with a
program primarily serving children
with disabilities.
“Once you are registered, there is no
obligation to do anything else,” Nelson
said.
However, she will need at least 150
volunteers to come to the drop point at
Centennial High School to help sort the
books by title and age group. She envi-
sions a sea of union members all wear-
ing their union-colored T-shirts sorting
and processing the books. Then, more
union members and community part-
ners would take boxes of books to hand
out to children, who get to keep them
forever.
“We understand that investing in
early childhood education is really the
most important investment any com-
munity can make. We want to give
every child in east county the opportu-
nity to succeed,” Nelson said.
“This is a positive project that will
put the children on a path to a better fu-
ture,” noted Richard Ramirez, organiz-
ing director for OSEA.
To register, go online to www.first-
book.org/aft. When signing up, be sure
to use the AFT link. For more infor-
mation, call Ramirez at 1-800-252-
6732.
Workers hurt on the job
have a right to pursue a
‘third party case’ in court
against a responsible party
other than their employer,
for damages not available
in workers’ compensation.
unaware of the magnitude of the prob-
lem.
The National Coordinating Commit-
tee for Multi-Employer Plans (NC-
CMP), a joint group of union leaders
and executives, proposed a solution last
year. “Solutions, Not Bailouts” would
rewrite pension law to allow plans with
surpluses to sock money away to save
for future hard times; allow flexible
timelines for plans to return to solvency;
allow cuts in earned benefits — includ-
ing those retirees in pay status already
earning benefits, and establish ways for
plans to seek new clients, merge, or
both.
Kline said the choice NCCMP offers
is “between an axe in the hands of a
first-year med student, or a scalpel in
the hand of a trusted surgeon.”
If a multi-employer pension plan
does collapse, participants have a safety
net in the form of the government’s
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. But its
director, Joshua Gotbaum, said “PBGC
is a safety net that’s only a foot above
the ground. Plans whose participants
come to PBGC are seeing their benefits
cut very substantially.”
For a participant with 30 years of
service retiring at age 65, the maximum
benefit amount that the PBGC will pay
is $12,870 per year. Any benefits that
participants have earned over this
amount are forfeited. The maximum an-
nual benefit for workers with 20 years
of service is $8,580.
Gotbaum said the vast majority of
multi-employer pension plans will be
around “next year, next decade, and
next generation.” He said there is a mi-
nority of plans covering between 1 mil-
lion to 2 million people that will be-
come insolvent over time — some
sooner than later.
“What they need is the ability to ad-
just their benefits to survive and stay
above PBGC levels,” he said.
International Association of Ma-
chinists General President Tom Buffen-
barger was the lone dissenter at the fo-
rum. His union’s plans escaped the
2008 financial crash for the most part
by investing conservatively. But he said
the crash itself caused the problems.
And since taxpayers had to bail out the
big banks that caused the crash, the gov-
ernment should help taxpayers save
their own pensions, Buffenbarger de-
clared.
“We’re girding for the fight over cut-
ting benefits of existing retirees,” he
stated. “These are the people who
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worked hard, they earned a pension —
which are deferred wages. They played
by the rules. And now they’re supposed
to take the pain for doing all the right
things in life? And the reason that drove
this was the bad acting by our financial
community and by our government.”
Buffenbarger said the federal gov-
ernment “was very quick to act to bail
out banks and the bad actors there; bail
out corporations and the bad actors
there; bail out accounting firms, bail out
airlines, bail out auto companies, bail
out everybody ... but the American tax-
payer. I find nothing wrong with asking
our government to throw a few dollars
into a system that will put some secu-
rity back into our retirement system.”
David Certner of AARP said one of
the fundamental tenents of ERISA is
that once a worker has earned a (pen-
sion) benefit, it can’t be taken away
(called the anti-cutback rule).
“There is a very bright line there for
us that says, ‘no you can’t do that.’
Those are earned benefits, you can’t cut
those benefits. You have to look at other
alternatives,” he said.
The Pension Protection Act reforms
are set to expire at the end of 2014. Rep.
Kline says a new reform act needs to get
through Congress this year.
(Editor’s Note: Press Associates Inc.
contributed to this report.)
...Staples
boycott
(From Page 1)
because roughly one-third of Staples’
revenue comes from the sale of school
supplies, said Jim Falvey, president of
Portland-based National Association of
Letter Carriers Branch 82.
When management of the store on
Northeast 122nd off Glisan Street in
Portland refused to accept the protest-
ers’ petition, the protesters began chant-
ing “the U.S. Mail is not for sale” and
“privatization has got to go,” while
blocking the store entrance. After the
person in charge agreed to convey their
message to upper management, the pro-
testers filed out, chanting “we’ll be
back.”
“Staples is setting up fake post of-
fices inside their stores that jeopardize
our nation’s public post offices, the
sanctity of the mail and thousands of
good jobs at living wages,” said Jamie
Partridge, a retired letter carrier now
with Communities and Postal Workers
United, the organization that sponsored
of the action.
“The public should not be fooled by
claims of better service. Staples work-
ers are not sworn to safeguard the mail.
The risk of theft from the mail de-
posited in a Staples post office is very
real,” Partridge said.
Protesters vow to increase pressure
on the office supply chain nationwide
until it drops the postal contract.
PAGE 3