WASHINGTON – As the general elections approaches, Democrats are keen to remind union voters in Pennsylvania that many workers’ pensions were preserved as part of a coronavirus pandemic-era relief package that continues to be offered.
By Friday, the White House said, more than 1 million union workers and retirees’ pensions will have been saved by the Butch Lewis Lawwhich became law in spring 2021.
The law, enacted as part President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Planwill ultimately prevent cuts to retirement benefits for 2 million workers and retirees across the country.
It is named after a retired Ohio truck driver and Teamsters union leader who spent the last years of his life fighting to avoid massive cuts to the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund. He created a special financial assistance program that allows struggling multiemployer pension plans to apply for assistance from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a federal agency that protects the retirement income of workers in defined benefit pension plans.
The Butch Lewis Act was designed to ultimately stanch the insolvency of about 200 multiemployer pension plans for 30 years. Many workers faced cuts to their benefits of up to 50%, which would have caused enormous economic harm to more than 2 million retired and retired Americans.
Biden administration officials, including senior adviser Gene Sperling, and a group of union workers from the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Workers International Union planned to be in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with Senator Bob Casey on Friday to highlight the law.
Casey, a Democrat, is seeking re-election against Republican Dave McCormick in the Pennsylvania race for U.S. Senate. And the Biden administration is paying special attention to the swing state of Pennsylvania as the president seeks re-election, hoping to transform unionized workers at the polls.
“Whether it’s Social Security, Medicare or pensions, workers who earn a decent retirement through decades of hard work and sacrifice should never see their benefits cut because of broken promises or policies that favor the wealthy over working families,” Biden said in an announcement. declaration.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump hired some workers in his 2016 victory and this year is looking to exploit a division between union leaders who supported Democratic candidates and rank-and-file members who could be influenced to vote Republican.
Rita Lewis, widow of Butch Lewis, told the Associated Press that before the law was passed, union retirees she knew “were talking about having to sell their homes and move in with their kids.”
Lewis, who lives in West Chester, Ohio, and receives restored income from her late husband’s pension, said she plans to vote for Biden in November because he kept his promise to working people.
“President Biden and the Democrats were true to their word when they said they would restore our pensions,” she said.
In 2016, she led a protest outside the Capitol, calling for the passage of the Butch Lewis Act, saying, “A promise is a promise is a promise.”
Many multiemployer pension plans faced funding shortfalls during and after the Great Recession, when the plans were left with far more retirees than active workers. Business bankruptcies and withdrawals from plans, as well as investment losses in 2001 and again in 2008 with the stock market collapse, greatly reduced the amount of money in plans, according to the nonprofit organization Pension Rights Center.
Despite the restoration of some workers’ pensions, there are still workers whose retirement benefits were cut during the Great Recession who have not seen their benefits restored.
For example, an estimate 20,000 workers of Delphi Corp., a subsidiary of General Motors Corp., have spent the past 15 years fighting to recoup what they lost after General Motors filed for bankruptcy in 2009. The company said it would not assume pension liabilities for the unit’s salaried workers. Delphi, unlike its unionized workers. After bringing the matter to the end the US Supreme Courtwho refused to hear their case, the pensioners were deprived of their last legal recourse.
They are pushing for passage of the Susan Muffley Act, which would restore their benefits in a similar way to the Butch Lewis Act. The White House supports this legislation.
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