Pension Reform
Issue
To protect multiemployer retirement security and prevent taxpayer bailouts, the MCAA participated in a national committee to address long-term challenges facing pension plans.
Over 40 organizations, representing both Labor and Management from across those industries that rely on multiemployer plans as a primary vehicle for providing secure retirement income to employees, have identified a set of private sector solutions to not just strengthen, but enhance the multiemployer system for future generations of retirees.
The Retirement Security Review Commission (“RSRC”) of the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (“NCCMP) released this year their recommendations under a report entitled, “Solutions, Not Bailouts”, which identified 3 basic solutions:
- Preservation: Proposals to Strengthen the Current System; includes technical fixes to Pension Protection Act.
- Remediation: Measures to Assist Deeply Troubled Plans; includes tools to allow plans to make adjustments before they are in trouble
- Innovation: New Structures to Foster Innovative Plan Designs
These steps will help to de-risk the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
The full report can be accessed at www.solutionsnotbailouts.com.
Position
The MCAA supports reform that will allow for transition away from the Defined Benefit Plans, ultimately de-risking these plans by paying down the unfunded liabilities while transitioning to alternative type plans. This will result in de-risking for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”).
