Skip to main content

Ohio Senator Proposes Bill to Shore Up Multiemployer Pension Plans


This week, it was announced that Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio, is supporting a bill in Congress that would shore up multiemployer pension plans in his state.  Many of those plans have come under scrutiny as of late with predictions that many will go insolvent in the next decade if something is not done to prop them up.

Under the Senator's plan, a new Treasury Department office would be created that would oversee money lent to pension plans.  (This new office, the Pension Rehabilitation Fund, would supervise the loans that would come from the sale of Treausry bonds to private investors.)  Under this proposed legislation, no fewer than seven pension plans in Ohio would be able to borrow enough money to remain solvent and continue providing pensions to its retirees.  Senator Brown's proposal would essentially prop up a number of well known pension plans in the state including the United Mine Workers Pension, the Ironworkers Local 17 Pension Plan, and the Ohio Southwest Carpenters Pension Plan.  

Critics of this proposal have argued that it is an attempt by a Democratic Senator who has been rumored to be considering a run for higher office, using his position to placate his base and build good will among the labor unions.  It is quite possible this criticism is correct, but I believe the bigger issue is allowing these pension plans to continue to borrow money and further dig themselves into a hole.  At some point, these pension plans risk becoming insolvent if there is not a significant cash infusion to prop them up.  However, eventually (perhaps in the coming years), it will be time to pay the piper.  When that happens, some generation of retirees will be left holding the bucket and with a pension plan that has collapsed.  Is this proposed legislation simply plugging a leaking dam with a piece of gum?  At some point, allowing pension plans to continue borrowing money will no longer be a realistic solution...


For additional information:  https://www.google.com/amp/www.daytondailynews.com/news/local-govt--politics/bill-would-allow-pension-funds-borrow-money-cover-losses/l0kBYX4Wl4WrmG6OGyBCqL/amp.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more