BROWN, PRESIDENT BIDEN ANNOUNCE FINAL RULE SAVING PENSIONS OF MORE THAN 100,000 OHIOANS

Press Release

Today, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and President Joe Biden joined retirees and their families from across Northeast Ohio to celebrate the pension relief Brown helped secure in the American Rescue Plan and announce the final rule issued by the Department of Labor that will save the pensions that 100,000 Ohioans earned.

"After years of work by workers and retirees and small business owners in Ohio and around the country, in the American Rescue Plan we finally saved the pensions thousands of Ohioans earned over a lifetime of work, with NO CUTS," said Brown. "So many times, we wondered if we could get this done. But union workers never gave up."

For years, Brown led efforts to save these Ohioans' pensions, touring the state to stand with Ohio retirees, workers and their families, and co-chairing a Congressional Committee on the pension crisis in 2018. Those efforts led to Brown's Butch Lewis Act being included in the American Rescue Plan, which will save the pensions of more than 100,000 Ohioans.

"The middle class built America, and unions built the middle class, and today I'm keeping a promise - one of the most significant achievements union workers and retirees have received in over 50 years," said Biden. "We turned a promise broken into a promise kept. It matters to workers. It matters to their families, it matters to the country."

The Butch Lewis Act, named in memory of Butch Lewis, the former retired head of Teamsters Local 100 in southwest Ohio, secured retirement benefits for workers and retirees in endangered pension plans for 30 years--with no cuts to benefits.

Brown's Butch Lewis Act:

· Keeps multiemployer pension plans solvent and well-funded for 30 years--with no cuts to earned benefits of participants and beneficiaries;

· Restores full benefits for retirees in plans that previously had to take cuts and increase the maximum Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) insurance amount; and

· Requires each plan that receives assistance file regular status reports with the PBGC and Congressional Committees, to prevent recurrence and protect retirees' benefits.

Source