PAGE 2 | July 19, 2019 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
NORTHWEST
LABOR
PRESS
...Butch Lewis Act clears key House committee
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Pension Plan who fought to pro-
tect retirees’ benefits before suc-
cumbing to a stroke in Decem-
ber of 2015 — the bill is widely
supported by organized labor. It
has 199 co-sponsors in the
House, including all of Oregon’s
Democratic delegation. Nine
Republicans are cosponsors, but
many more Republicans oppose
it, calling it a “union bailout.”
The bill would provide loans
and other assistance to severely
underfunded plans to enable
them to protect retirees’ earned
benefits, while giving plans 30
years to recover their losses and
repay the loans. Money for the
loans and the cost of running the
program would come from the
sale of Treasury-issued bonds to
financial institutions,
According to the National As-
sociation of Plan Advisors, the
Treasury Department would sell
the bonds in the open market to
large investors, such as financial
institutions—and then lend the
money from the sale of the bonds
to the financially troubled plans.
Sponsors of the legislation
note that of the 1,400 multiem-
ployer plans covering nearly 10
million people across the coun-
try, about 1.3 million of them
Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, a member of the House Ways &
Means Committee, speaks in favor of the Butch Lewis Pension Reform Act.
are in plans that are quickly run-
ning out of money.
Among the troubled plans are
Western States Office and Pro-
fessional Employees Pension
Fund (members of OPEIU Lo-
cal 11), and Portland-based Plas-
terers Local 82 Pension Plan.
Both plans in recent months
have cut their pension benefits
for current and future retirees in
order to save them from insol-
vency. The OPEIU plan was cut
30% and Plasterers pension cuts
ranged from 22% to 31%. The
plans were allowed to do this un-
der the 2014 Multi-employer
Pension Reform Act, which was
rammed through Congress with
little debate.
Ways & Means Committee
chair Rep. Richard Neal (D-
Mass.), and lead co-sponsor
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) refuted
the GOP’s bailout charge at a
press conference prior to the
markup session on July 10.
“This is not a bailout. What
we are proposing is a back-
stop—the full faith and credit of
the U.S. government, which is
used every day worldwide,”
through Treasury bonds, Neal
explained. “We will construct a
structure, a rehabilitation agency,
with minimal costs” to run the
pension program.”
Neal recollected his dealings
with the savings and loan crisis
of the 1980s and ’90s, and the
2008 crash caused by large banks
and Wall Street.
“I was here for the S&L cri-
sis,” he said. “That was a bailout.
I was here for Wall Street. That
was a bailout. They (executives)
not only kept their jobs, but they
got bonuses.”
Teamsters General President
Jim Hoffa said “it’s time for the
rest of Congress to follow suit
and deliver for these hardwork-
ing Americans who are paying,
or have paid, into the pension
pool and have played by the
rules all their lives. Lawmakers
need to show a united front
when it comes to standing up for
workers who make up the back-
bone of this nation.”
Republicans who are critical
of the bill have yet to offer an al-
ternative solution, despite spend-
ing nearly all of 2018 working
on the issue with Democrats as
part of the Joint Select Commit-
tee on Solvency of Multiem-
ployer Pensions. The group was
tasked by Congress to resolve
the crisis, but lawmakers were
unable to agree on a bill before
Congress adjourned.
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