Democrats put a spotlight on more than 1 million pensions saved under a 2021 law

WASHINGTON — If the general elections approaches, Democrats would like to remind Pennsylvania union voters that pensions have been preserved for many workers as part of a coronavirus pandemic relief package that keeps on giving.

On Friday, the White House said that more than 1 million trade union and retired pensions will have been saved by the Butch Lewis Actwhich became law in the spring of 2021.

The law, issued as part of President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Planwill ultimately put an end to the cutbacks on the pension benefits of 2 million employees and pensioners throughout 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 prevent massive cuts to the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund. It created a special financial assistance program that allows distressed multiemployer pension plans to apply for assistance from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., a federal agency that protects the retirement incomes of workers in defined benefit plans.

The Butch Lewis Act is intended to ultimately delay the insolvency of approximately 200 multiemployer pension plans for 30 years. Many workers faced cuts in their benefits of up to 50%, which would have caused enormous economic damage 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, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union planned to be in Hershey, Pennsylvania, on Friday with Senator Bob Casey to share the spotlight set law.

Casey, a Democrat, is seeking re-election against Republican Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania’s 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 do just that come trade union workers at the ballot box.

“Whether it’s Social Security, Medicare or pensions, workers who deserve a dignified 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 a speech. rack.

The Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, picked up a number of workers during his 2016 victory and this year he wants to take advantage of that. a gap Among trade union leaders who have supported democratic candidates and ordinary members who can be given to vote republican.

Rita Lewis, Butch Lewis’ widow, told The Associated Press that before the law was passed, union retirees she knew were talking about selling their homes and living with their children.

Lewis, who lives in West Chester, Ohio and is receiving restored income from her late husband’s pension, said she plans to vote for Biden in November because he has kept his promise to workers.

“President Biden and the Democrats kept 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 shortages during and after the Great Recession, when pension plans far outnumbered active workers. Company bankruptcies and withdrawals from plans, as well as investment losses in 2001 and again in 2008 with the stock market collapse, have significantly reduced the amount of money in plans, according to the nonprofit Pension Rights Center.

Despite the restoration of some workers’ pensions, there are still workers whose pension benefits were reduced during the Great Recession and have not had their benefits restored.

An estimate for example 20,000 employees of Delphi Corp., a subsidiary of General Motors Corp., have spent the past 15 years fighting to get back what they lost after General Motors filed for bankruptcy in 2009. The company said it would not assume pension obligations for employees of the Delphi unit. , in contrast to the trade union workers. After I had treated the problem completely the US Supreme CourtThey refused to deal with their case, the pensioners were cut off from their last remedy.

They are pushing for passage of the Susan Muffley Act, which would restore their benefits in the same way as the Butch Lewis Act. The White House supports that legislation.