Multiemployer Pension System

Floor Speech

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Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the public health crisis and the economic crisis that are happening right now are not happening in a vacuum.

All the damage caused by the coronavirus and the President's failures is layered on top of all the existing problems of our country, including the crisis we have been facing for years in the multiemployer pension system.

More than a million American workers and retirees were already in danger of losing the retirement security that they earned. These are people who did everything right. They spent years working on assembly lines, bagging groceries, driving trucks, working hard to keep this economy going and to provide for their families. Money came out of every single one of their paychecks to pay into a pension system.

People in Washington don't understand the collective bargaining process. They either don't understand it or don't care to understand it. People give up dollars today at the bargaining table for the promise of a secure retirement, with healthcare and a pension.

This crisis affects thousands of Ohioans and people in Indiana, the Presiding Officer's State. It affects the massive Central States Pension Plan, the Bricklayers Local 7, the Ironworkers Local 17, the Ohio Southwest Carpenters Pension Plan, the Bakers and Confectioners Pension Plan, and on and on and on.

It touches every single State in the country. We are talking about our entire multiemployer pension system. If it collapses, it will not just be retirees who feel the pain. Current workers will be stuck paying into pensions they will never receive. Small businesses will be left drowning in pension liability they can't afford. Small businesses that have been in the family for generations could face bankruptcy.

I have seen those companies: Spangler Candy in Williams County, OH; Smucker's Preserves in Orrville, OH. We have seen these companies that have been family companies paying into this pension plan for generations, and workers lose jobs if businesses close up shop.

The effect will ripple through the entire economy. It is not only union businesses that participate in these plans that will close their doors. It would devastate small communities across the industrial heartland. Small businesses in these communities already are hurt because of this virus.

These pension plans were already in danger prior to February or March, or even April or May, when the President decided that this was a crisis. Now the economic emergency we are in has put them in a worse position.

The House did its part repeatedly. First, they passed the Butch Lewis Act. More than 2 months ago, they passed the Heroes Act, which includes a pension solution.

But under Senator McConnell, the Senate has done nothing. It is time for us to do our part.

Leader McConnell has refused to do anything on pensions. We could have fixed this last year. He chose not to. He didn't address it in the HEALS Act that he introduced last week, and he didn't address it in the CARES Act that we passed back in March.

There are reports the President, who has not been a friend of workers--putting it mildly--was fine with including a multiemployer pension fix in the CARES Act if Leader McConnell wanted it. But Leader McConnell stopped it, and the President wasn't willing to step in. He is supposed to lead the country, but he has outsourced his decision making to Senator McConnell.

The Senate must act. If the entire multiemployer pension system collapses, it will make our economic crisis worse. We knew before this pandemic that the pension system could collapse. It is only more likely to fail now. If that happens, we know who gets hurt the most. It is not the Wall Street banks that squandered workers' money. It is small businesses. It is workers. It is employees who did everything right. Their lives and livelihoods will be devastated if Congress doesn't do our job.

Workers and retirees in Ohio and around the country have rallied in the name of Butch Lewis, a great Ohioan who helped lead this fight and passed away far too soon, fighting for his fellow workers. His wife, Rita Lewis, has continued his fight and has become a leader and an inspiration to so many of us.

Rita once told me that retirees and workers struggling with this crisis feel like they are invisible. These Americans aren't invisible to me. They shouldn't be invisible to this body.

They aren't invisible to Speaker Pelosi or Leader Schumer. They are not invisible to Senator Smith, who is from Minnesota and has done yeoman's work on this; or Senator Peters from Michigan, who has spoken out and fought for better laws; or Chairman Neal in the House; or Chairman Scott from Virginia in the House; and many of my colleagues who worked for years now trying to find a bipartisan solution.

We are not giving up. As we know, it comes back to the dignity of work. When work has dignity, we honor the retirement security people earn. When you love this country, you fight for the people who make it work.

I urge my colleagues in this body--colleagues with healthcare and retirement plans paid for by taxpayers--to think about these retired workers and the stress--on top of the stress of the coronavirus--they are facing.

Join us. Let's pass a solution that honors their work, that honors the dignity of work, and that keeps our promise.

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