Uncategorized
Secure Pensions for Retirement Security
WHEREAS, retirement benefits are part of the compensation negotiated in collective bargaining and earned by covered participants as they perform their labor over the years; and
WHEREAS, the entitlement of workers to receive retirement benefits earned as part of their compensation should be protected from any impairment under our law; and
WHEREAS, in the last four decades, there has been a trend among employers to switch from offering defined benefit retirement plans (DB retirement plans) to defined contribution plans (DC plans) as the preferred vehicle for providing retirement benefits to employees; and
WHEREAS, the percentage of active employees who are also participants in private-sector employment-based DB retirement plans has declined from 62 percent in 1980 to less than 20 percent today; and
WHEREAS, many large employers that sponsor DB retirement plans have frozen these plans for some or all plan participants, as recently happened at Caterpillar, Inc., Kraft Foods, Inc., The New York Times Company, Qwest Communications, Dow Jones and Wells Fargo; and
WHEREAS, along with Social Security, DB retirement plans provide an important source of retirement income for millions of American workers and, when compared to DC plans, provide better benefits, are more professionally administered and managed and offer greater protection against investment and other risks; and
WHEREAS, many Teamsters who participate in single-employer and multiemployer DB retirement plans have earned guaranteed and predictable lifetime retirement benefits under those DB retirement plans; and
WHEREAS, steep stock market declines occurring twice during the last decade, in conjunction with consistently low interest rates, have caused many single-employer and multiemployer DB retirement plans to face serious funding shortfalls; and
WHEREAS, those employers that contribute to single-employer and multiemployer DB retirement plans are responsible for making up funding shortfalls for these plans, obligations that, in general, can only be extinguished for a particular employer if it goes out of business and/or goes through bankruptcy; and
WHEREAS, employers that go out of business and/or go through bankruptcy can transfer their single-employer DB retirement plan liabilities to the Pension Benefit
Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) but can transfer their portion of their unfunded liabilities under a multiemployer DB retirement plan to the remaining employers that sponsor the plan, all of which will continue to be collectively responsible for ensuring that the retirement benefits of “orphaned” participants, i.e., former employees of the employer that went out of business, are fully funded; and
WHEREAS, multiemployer DB retirement plans saddled with liability for “orphaned” former employees of contributing employers that have gone out of business or gone bankrupt are required to take appropriate steps to ensure that this liability is covered including, in many instances, increasing the contributions required from the remaining employers; and
WHEREAS, the deregulation of some Teamster industries in which employees are typically covered by multiemployer DB retirement plans has exacerbated the problem of unfunded pension liabilities for “orphaned” participants being increasingly shifted to a smaller and smaller pool of contributing employers; and
WHEREAS, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has consistently urged Congress to provide relief to multiemployer DB retirement plans by, among other things, permitting those plans to transfer their unfunded pension liabilities for “orphaned” participants in whole or in part to the PBGC, by increasing the PBGC maximum guaranteed benefit for participants in multiemployer DB retirement plans and by adopting statutory provisions that would facilitate the merger of multiemployer DB retirement plans; and
WHEREAS, the failure by Congress to provide this relief could force many employers that contribute to underfunded multiemployer DB retirement plans into bankruptcy because of the unsustainable funding obligations imposed by current law; and
WHEREAS, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have entertained bills that would ease the rules covering multiemployer DB retirement plan mergers, increase the PBGC maximum benefit guarantee for participants in multiemployer DB retirement plans and permit “orphaned” participants in multiemployer DB retirement plans to be “spun off” to a separate plan controlled by the PBGC or to the PBGC itself, thereby transferring the unfunded pension liabilities for those “orphaned” participants to the PBGC or a PBGC-controlled plan in whole or in part.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will continue to fight to preserve the defined benefit retirement plan system and will continue to join with other organizations in the struggle to preserve retirement security for all workers and their families; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will continue to call upon Congress and the President to provide permanent and effective relief to multiemployer defined benefit retirement plans that will protect the retirement benefits earned by all Teamster participants through the adoption of legislation that would ease the rules covering multiemployer DB retirement plan mergers, increase the PBGC maximum benefit guarantee for participants in multiemployer DB retirement plans and permit “orphaned” participants in multiemployer DB retirement plans to be “spun off” to a separate plan controlled by the PBGC or to the PBGC itself, thereby transferring the unfunded pension liability for those “orphaned” participants to the PBGC or a PBGC-controlled plan in whole or in part; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters will fight in all of its contracts and in all upcoming bargaining sessions to establish and preserve good retirement benefits for all Teamster members and retirees.