A group of union workers and leaders are warning against a measure in the House Democrats’ HEROES Act that they claim would negatively affect U.S. pensions in the long run.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s $3 trillion bill includes relief from required minimum distributions for multiemployer pension plans.
“Composite legislation is deeply flawed because it allows multiemployer plan trustees to ‘refinance’ their obligations to workers and retirees in the existing plan over 25 years instead of 15 years, so they can divert money to start a new composite plan,” the union leaders said in a letter to lawmakers. “This weakens the existing plan and leaves neither plan — the existing plan nor the composite plan — with enough money to pay promised benefits.”
The letter was signed by representatives for the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union and the Directors Guild of America, among others.
The House bill passed late last week, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said there is no chance the bill will make it through the upper chamber as it is currently written.
