[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 57 (Thursday, April 14, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H1731-H1733]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT INCOME SECURITY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. 
Kaptur) for 30 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge that Congressman Tim 
Ryan of Ohio and Congressman Rick Nolan of Minnesota had scheduling 
conflicts. They were here earlier, and we thought this Special Order 
would start earlier. And I want to say thank you to both of them so 
very much for their strong support of the pension benefit rights of 
America's workers and retirees.
  Tonight I rise to bring a very serious situation to the attention of 
the American people, a situation that demands justice. It relates to 
something called ERISA, or the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, 
passed decades ago that says when workers work and accrue benefits for 
retirement, those are sacrosanct. They are earned benefits and no one 
can cut them. ERISA promises that those retirees will receive the 
earned benefits that they worked so hard for.
  Mr. Speaker, I want the American people to know that today I stood 
with thousands of America's workers out here on the lawn facing the 
Capitol. American retirees, their families, and supporters are here in 
our Nation's capital to save their hard-earned pensions that should be 
guaranteed under the laws of this country. They are here in Washington 
because Congress abandoned them. They were abandoned by the executive 
branch, too.
  What has happened is that hundreds of thousands of American workers 
are getting notices in the mail. These are current beneficiaries, 
people who are already retired, who are getting notices that their 
pensions are being cut by half, by 30 percent, some as much as by 70 
percent under something that passed here in the Congress called the 
Multiemployer Pension Reform Act.
  But it didn't pass on its own, as a freestanding piece of 
legislation. It was stuck in a gigantic bill--we call it a must-pass 
bill--that, in December of 2014, if it had not been passed, the 
government would have shut down. The problem is most Members of 
Congress had no idea that was even in that bill. That section was 
airlifted into what was called the CR/Omnibus, the continuing 
resolution appropriations bill of that year. But on the section that 
dealt with pension rights, which had nothing to do with the 
appropriations process or the continuing resolution, these pension cuts 
were dropped in. There was no floor debate, there was no separate 
debate on that issue.

                              {time}  1900

  There were no amendments allowed. People, Members didn't even know 
what was in that section of the bill.
  So that Multiemployer Pension Reform Act, they call it MPRA, was 
supposed to solve one crisis, and that is a shortage in the funds 
currently in that particular pension fund; but it placed the solution 
on the backs of the workers, the people who had earned those benefits 
themselves. Retirees who never caused the financial shortfall are going 
to bear the entire burden of the shortfall in that fund.
  In reality, people in Ohio--just who were Ohio Teamster retirees, 
nearly 48,000 retirees in Ohio, the State most impacted in the union--
are now getting notices that their pensions are going to be cut. 
Overall, there are over 270,000--a quarter million--Teamster retirees, 
alone, across our country who are being affected; and, of course, some 
of them were with us today.
  Over the last year, I have heard extensively from retirees who will 
see their pensions dramatically reduced--dramatically reduced--if, in 
fact, these cuts are approved by the U.S. Treasury Department.
  These Americans did everything our country asked them to do as 
productive citizens. They went to work. They worked for decades. They 
worked for companies that matched that money, and they thought they 
would have a secure retirement--guaranteed. The law says, under ERISA, 
their retirement income will be guaranteed. But now it is a promise not 
being kept, and they are facing a stark reality. These workers earned 
their benefits. No one has the right to take them away.
  Imagine working for 30 years as a truck driver, where your work takes 
you away on long trips for weeks at a time--time away from your family, 
time away from your community, countless missed family gatherings and 
life moments you will never get back, but you are a good worker so you 
do it. It is a good job with good pay, a solid middle-class living, a 
chance to make life better for your family and children, and, with it, 
all the promise of a reasonable and secure retirement in later years, 
if you can make it, doing that hard work.
  Imagine that you retire with your earned, predictable pension you 
have worked for your whole life. You are in your seventies, and a 
hastily passed government law reduces your pension from $3,500 a month 
to $1,400 a month--poof, just like that, through no fault of yours. You 
did everything you were supposed to.
  This example is not the exception of what is happening to the 
American people; it is the rule.
  Now, let me tell you, truck driving is hard work. It is debilitating 
on bodies, the bouncing, hopping out of that truck, many workers having 
to load the truck, as well as drive the truck, and then unload the 
truck, leaving many of these retirees disabled from work they did for 
20 and 30 years.
  I hear countless stories of how retirees are caring for their 
children, some of whom who have disabilities, supporting their own ill 
and aged parents, or supporting children and grandchildren with life 
expenses which, the last time I looked, aren't going down.
  Electric bills are up. Food is up. It is not so easy to make it in 
retirement years. These pension cuts impact more than just the 
individual who earned the pension. Literally, these cuts impact 
millions of Americans and the communities in which they reside.
  The House has continued to let these retirees down in its failure to 
hold even a single hearing to fully understand their financial plight. 
Can you imagine that? A federally guaranteed income secured, been in 
the law for years, now you have got hundreds of thousands of Americans 
impacted and Congress is dead as a doornail. They are not doing their 
job, even as these workers face these tremendous cuts.
  Now, one of the major funds that is affected was called Central 
States, and

[[Page H1732]]

it was the first fund being affected--where its workers, pension 
retirees, were being affected--that filed an application with the 
Treasury Department to restructure benefits. But that application is 
only the first of many funds, pension funds, that will seek cuts in the 
years ahead.
  The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation reports that 150 
multiemployer plans--covering a million and a half participants--are in 
grave risk of insolvency. With those cuts, entire communities will feel 
the economic impact.
  What is more shameful is this was caused, in large part, by the role 
played--get ready--by the large, multinational banks. Let me list three 
of them for you: Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Northern Trust. You 
see, the Central States Pension Fund is the only major private pension 
fund where all the discretionary investment decisions are made by 
financial firms, not our government. There was a court order from 1982 
that has made the decisions for the retirees' billion-dollar fund. So 
the government basically turned this money over to the big banks.
  Does this sound familiar?
  This was the result of the Department of Labor wrestling control of 
the fund, back in the eighties, away from organized crime, who used 
funds as their own piggy bank to build parts of Las Vegas. But the real 
irony here is that the Teamsters' pension fund disappeared more quickly 
under Wall Street than it did under the mob. How about that?
  Ask the retirees how they feel, and they will tell you they got their 
money under the mob control. And I am not arguing for mob control. I am 
arguing for fair treatment of pensioners in our country and getting the 
money they earned.
  Time has not been friendly to the trucking industry, with 
deregulation decimating good-paying jobs in trucking companies across 
the country and bankruptcy laws allowing hundreds of companies to exit 
the fund without paying their full withdrawal liabilities.
  Lots went wrong by the big shots making the decisions, but the people 
paying the price over this 30-year period are the workers, and that is 
wrong. That is wrong.
  The fund was hit particularly hard by the turmoil in the markets 
during the dot-com bubble and then followed by the Great Recession and 
financial crash during 2007 and 2008. Guess what. The fund, the pension 
fund, lost nearly 40 percent of its assets as it appears to have been 
overly invested in risky assets by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and 
Northern Trust.

  We are calling for a forensic audit of what happened every year with 
the investments of this fund and who did it, who benefited, and now, 
who is being asked to pay the price.
  How tragic that Congress will bail out the big banks, but then they 
will throw millions of truck drivers and middle-class retirees who 
worked hard for a living under the bus--or under the truck.
  Central States will tell you that these dynamics have caused the 
shortages, but the handwriting has been on the wall for a rather long 
time. While other funds diversified and recruited additional employers, 
something happened in this fund that is atypical. But why should the 
workers be blamed for what the managers and the bankers did?
  Immediately after that law was passed, called MPRA, I set to work to 
correct the unfairness to America's workers and introduced H.R. 2844, 
the Keep Our Pension Promises Act. It now has nearly 50 cosponsors--50.
  The idea here is--we call it KOPPA--the Keep Our Pension Promises Act 
would prevent these draconian cuts to the earned pensions of our 
workers by filling the financial gap in the fund and reinstate the 
``anti-cutback'' provisions in ERISA, the bedrock of that law.
  We have to keep our promises. ERISA promised that pension benefits in 
multiemployer plans would be cut only when a plan runs out of money; 
and even then, the benefit of the retirees should be the last to be 
cut, not the first to be cut.
  No wonder that the middle class is mad at Washington. No wonder we 
see this Presidential race that is occurring, where there is a lot of 
hubbub around the country. The public is sick and tired of Washington 
doing this kind of thing to the American people. The public sees that 
this is just another broken promise by Washington and another rigged 
bill that went through here by the top leaders in Congress that most 
Members didn't even know was in there.
  The system is rigged. A Senator from the other body said that. Well, 
by golly, on this one, in terms of benefits of pension retirees, it 
sure is rigged.
  There are more than a million honest Americans who, for decades and 
decades, worked hard. They followed the rules, and they are now getting 
thrown to the wind by their own government.
  Imagine if Congress were to cut Social Security benefits in the same 
way, by two-thirds, in a retiree's monthly pension payments. There 
would be riots in the streets.
  My colleagues, if you ever wonder why tens and tens of millions of 
Americans are angry, deeply disappointed, and feel betrayed by their 
government, look no further than this issue.
  I want to say to all the Americans who drove across the country today 
to be with us here in Washington, to spend the money for that gasoline, 
to take time away from their families--frankly, some of the men and 
women who were there couldn't even stand up on the lawn. They had to 
sit along the concrete fences along the side because their bodies 
simply can't hold them up as they did when they were younger. We can do 
better than this as a country.
  The bill that we are offering, H.R. 2844, basically would tax some of 
the assets of the most wealthy in our country and fill the gaps between 
now and 10 years from now so these workers wouldn't have to take these 
cuts. It is truly unfair to them.
  It is time we operate, in this Congress, with the oversight that this 
institution was built upon. It is time for the committees of 
jurisdiction to do their job. Give these Americans, who are patriotic 
people--many of them are veterans. Many of them have served our country 
so ably in so many ways. They have been good family people. They don't 
need to have their benefits cut in their retirement years.
  It has caused such havoc in these families, the worry alone, the 
blood pressures that have gone up and the heartache and the lost sleep 
of losing what they worked for their entire life. What is happening to 
them is wrong. It is not just.
  It is time for the Treasury Department to deny the Central States 
application to cut benefits, and it is time that this Congress keep our 
pension promises to the American people who worked so hard, paid their 
taxes, helped build their families, helped build their communities, had 
a great work ethic, went to work every day, many of them getting up 
real early before the sun even rose. And now to treat them like this, 
in their golden years, how wrong is this?
  I am so proud to rise on this floor this evening to speak on their 
behalf. They deserve a better day. I expect the people in this Congress 
and I expect the executive branch to dole out justice fairly to them 
and not make them the victim of the bad decisions that were made by the 
biggest banks in this country and by the managers of those funds that 
these workers dutifully paid their dues into over the years, coming out 
of their check every pay period. It is not right to cut their benefits. 
They do not deserve this.
  Those funds need additional time to recover following that 2008 
crash. You don't recover in 7 or 8 years, not from that kind of 
downfall in the economy. Why make the workers pay for the mistakes of 
others? It is just so wrong.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to come down here this evening urging my 
colleagues to support the Keep Our Pension Promises Act, to urge them 
to sign onto our bill, H.R. 2844.
  I say to those workers and retirees across our country who are likely 
listening: Keep up the faith. Keep writing your Representatives. Keep 
writing the U.S. Treasury Department, Mr. Ken Feinberg, who is in 
charge of this solution.
  We want to make sure that justice prevails; and if we speak out, if 
we don't give up, if we make sure we stand up and talk to our Senators, 
talk to our Representatives, talk to all the Presidential candidates 
coming

[[Page H1733]]

through our States, across our country, during this year, this 
Presidential year, we can impact this policy.
  Both political parties should have in their platforms this year that 
they will be writing come this summer that the Keep Our Pension 
Promises Act should be passed, that we should take care of these 
retirees and not permit them to lose the earned benefits that they 
spent their lives devoted to and now, in their later years, are facing 
these draconian cuts.
  It is so wrong. I ask for justice for these American workers. Let's 
do what is right for them. And I know the people listening tonight 
agree, and they would do the same thing if they were standing down here 
on this floor with me.
  Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for allowing me to speak out this 
evening and to stand alongside the hardworking men and women of our 
country. They deserve better treatment.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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