It’s not new news to hear that union multi-employer pension plans had been hit hard due to a combination of factors including changing industries and the 2008 stock market crash. While unions fought for years to get congress to support our plans as they had already supported single-employer plays, this effort had gone nowhere.
Until last year. The Biden administration ensured that the Butch Lewis Act would be inserted into the American Rescue Plan, providing foundational support for hundreds of troubled union plans.
The result: for our 1000 members in the San Francisco Lithographers Pension plan, instead of seeing their hard-earned pensions become insolvent next month, they will start to again receive their full monthly payouts in June. And in July, they will get a retroactive check representing full payment for the 10 months of checks that had been reduced starting in 2021.
“At the last minute, our consultants from the Segal Company and our trustees were able to negotiate a $130 million investment from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC),” explained Business Rep Lennie Kuhls. “If this hadn’t happened, we’d have been insolvent starting next month. Now the pension is guaranteed through 2051, if not longer.”
This good news impacts members who worked in the printing industry and were members of GCC 583, which had merged into Local 853 in 2006.
