(Image source from: www.cleveland.com)
Nearly 5,000 people rallied outside the Ohio Statehouse on Thursday to urge Congress to aid more than 200 multi-employer pension program at risk of failing.
People carried signs and sang union songs. And they shouted their message over and over again: Fix it. They came from as far as Utah.
The pension funds cover more than 1.3 million retirees nationwide and more than 60,000 in Ohio, including truck drivers, bakers, musicians, miners and flight attendants. If the funds' obligations exceed their assets, pensioners benefits will be slashed. Taxpayers could be on the hook if they fail because the plans are backed by the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp.
Ohio's Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown chairs the House and Senate Joint Select Committee on the Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans; Republican Sen. Rob Portman is also on the panel. The committee has 16 members: four senators from each party and four representatives from each party.
The committee is holding only one field hearing, in Ohio, and it faces a Nov. 30 deadline to reach a bipartisan deal to prevent the pensions from going under. Ten of the 16 must agree to a fix to send a plan to the House and Senate.
Employers who have been paying more to shore up the plans also want Congress to act. Ohio workers, retirees, and employers are scheduled to testify on Friday.
The United Mine Workers of America pension plan is on the brink of collapse. UMWA International President Cecil Roberts said the government needs to step in after creating the conditions for the funds struggles and bailing out the banks behind the financial crisis that led to the funds' investment losses on Wall Street.
"They should do the same for the retirees who lost their benefits and in some cases their health care," Roberts said.
Umpteen employees and retirees at the rally supported Brown's proposal to offer low-interest loans, called the Butch Lewis Act after a Cincinnati-area trucker and veteran who died from a stroke while fighting pension cuts.
By Sowmya Sangam
