The Central States Pension Fund ended the first quarter of 2018 with assets of $14.8 billion, a loss of $172 million for the quarter ending March 31, 2018. However, the loss would have been much worse except for a one-time payment of $467 million by the Kroger Corporation; this was a lump sum payment to pull all Kroger and some Kroger-contractor employees out of the pension fund permanently.

Thousands of unionists, most of them Mineworkers and Teamsters, but also workers from other unions and groups, rallied under a hot sun outside the Ohio State Capitol in Columbus on July 12 to demand that Congress take action to save workers’ earned pensions.