December 13, 2014: Congress has officially passed the spending bill that includes pension cut legislation that was attached as an amendment to the budget bill.

The legislation guts federal pension protections and will pave the way for pension cuts in the Central States Pension Fund.

Teamsters have questions and deserve answers. TDU lays out what the bill means for Teamsters in our Frequently Asked Questions. 

The biggest question of all may be: how did Hoffa let this happen in the first place?

While Hoffa was MIA or worse, TDU fought a grassroots campaign to protect Teamster pensions.

We partnered with the Pension Rights Center and AARP and launched a coalition for pension protections, not cuts.

We sounded the alarm when a Congressional sneak attack attached the pension cut deal to the end-of-year spending bill. Growing number of unions spoke out in opposition. We even forced the Hoffa administration to make a show of opposition.

The Hoffa administration was worse than MIA. His allies at the Central States Pension Fund were leading proponents of the pension cut deal. Central States Executive Director

Thomas Nyhan was a leading proponent of the pension cut deal. He was paid $662,060 by our pension fund last year. How big of a cut will he take?

Hoffa waited until the day before the legislation passed, Hoffa issued a last-minute letter opposing the pension rip-off. The IBT emailed members calling on them to make phone calls. This wasn't even a matter of too-little-too-late. It was a cover-up.

Hoffa stayed quiet to signal politicians that he backed the pension cut bill; then when the bill's passage was secured, he put on a show of opposition to the membership to cover himself politically.

Teamsters expect Congress to play politics. But they deserve more from their own union leadership. 

The Hoffa administration has spent the last year imposing contract concessions, healthcare cuts and pension cuts. It's time for change.

If you agree, get involved in the movement for change in our union.

Sign up for email updates at www.tdu.org and like us on facebook.

Send us a message and tell us what TDU should do next to fight for our union.

Join with Teamsters working to defend pensions, and change the leadership of the Teamster Union. Together, we can rebuild the Teamsters!

December 12, 2014: Thomas Nyhan testified in Congress and lobbied hard – with our pension money and staff – to get the pension-cut bill passed. Now, he got his wish: a 163-page bill sneaked through Congress, tacked onto the budget. 

We propose some small measure of equality of sacrifice, which is a basic principle of the labor movement.  

The executives of the Central States Pension and Welfare Funds should take a 30% cut, to show their sincerity when they talk about the need for sacrifice.

Let’s start with Thomas Nyhan, who was paid $662,060 in 2013 and Al Nelson who was paid $305,811. There are plenty of other fund executives in their bracket: in our review of the 5500 forms for Central States Pension and H&W Funds, we found 13 pulling down over $200,000, and seven over $300,000.

What do you think?

December 11, 2014: We need your help NOW! The House is poised to vote on the omnibus spending bill, which includes provisions that would allow pension plan trustees to cut the hard-earned pension benefits of current retirees – as a purported solution to shoring up certain financially-troubled multiemployer plans.

Click here to contact your members of congress and tell them to strip the pension cut ammendment from the omnibus bill.

Sign up for email updates at www.tdu.org and like us on https://www.facebook.com/teamstersforademocraticunion

At last the actual language has been released of the backroom, last-minute congressional deal allowing benefits of millions of retired workers to be shredded.

It's even worse than its critics anticipated.

We've tracked this inexcusably hasty, secretive maneuvering during the last week, reporting that it allows extreme, potentially premature cuts in benefits for retirees who are members of multi-employer pension plans. Such plans typically are sponsored jointly by unions and employers in given industries, like trucking. See our posts here and here for more background.

Click here to read more at the Los Angeles Times.

Dave Erickson of Isanti, Minn., believed his pension benefits were guaranteed when he contributed a fixed portion of his pay into the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.

On Wednesday, Erickson learned that those benefits might be cut under a provision that Minnesota Rep. John Kline aims to tack onto the new federal budget bill.

Click here to read more at the Star Tribune.

Six years after the financial crisis, the economic aftershocks are still rattling the halls of Congress -- this time in a debate over an esoteric pension provision tucked into an end-of-year budget bill. Though that legislation, known as the “cromnibus,” is supposed to be about annual appropriations for government agencies, lawmakers have inserted language that would give private pension plans the power to cut benefits to thousands of current retirees whose pension savings were decimated by investment losses from the financial collapse of 2008.

If the initiative is enacted, experts say, it would be the most consequential change to retirement policy in the United States since the passage of landmark pension legislation 40 years ago. Altering the 1974 Employee Retirement Income Security Act to permit benefit cuts could prompt a slew of efforts to chip away at formerly untouchable guarantees of income to millions of retirees.

Click here to read more at The International Times.

A bipartisan group of congressional leaders reached a deal Tuesday evening that would for the first time allow the benefits of current retirees to be severely cut, part of an effort to save some of the nation’s most distressed pension plans.

The measure, attached to a massive $1.01 trillion spending bill, would alter 40 years of federal law and could affect millions of workers, many of them part of a shrinking corps of middle-income employees in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets.

Click here to read more at The Washington Post.

A provision that would suspend parts of an hours of service rule has been included in a $1 trillion bill congressional lawmakers plan to advance to President Obama’s desk this month to keep federal agencies funded through fiscal 2015.

The provision, offered by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), would suspend for a year a requirement that drivers take off two consecutive periods of 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. during a 34-hour restart. It also would require the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to provide Congress with an extensive study detailing the rule’s safety benefits.

The bill language says that within 90 days of the enactment of the act, "the Secretary shall initiate a naturalistic study of the operational, safety, health and fatigue impacts of the restart provisions." It would suspend the current restart provisions through Sept. 30, 2015, "and the restart rule in effect on June 30, 2013, shall immediately be in effect."

American Trucking Associations’ leadership had urged its membership to press federal representatives to back the HOS suspension language in the omnibus.

"We're pleased that the Collins language is included in the fiscal 2015 omnibus spending bill.  We now urge the House and Senate to pass the overall bill and that the president sign it into law," said Sean McNally, ATA vice president of public affairs.

The bill also would provide $500 million for U.S. Department of Transportation infrastructure grants that have become popular with states and municipalities.

Congressional leaders are now in a race against the clock, as they look to advance the massive multi-bill legislation through the chambers. A short-term funding law expires Dec. 11. Without an omnibus package or another short-term funding measure reaching the president’s desk by that date, a government shutdown is likely.

“As we close in on our Dec. 11 deadline, we now ask that the House and Senate take up and pass this bill as soon as possible, and that the president sign it when it reaches his desk. The American people deserve the certainty of a continuously functioning and responsible government, and the knowledge that both parties in Congress have heard their demands and have worked cooperatively on their behalf,” said the chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations panels, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) and Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.).

Opposition to Collins’ proposal has come from the Obama administration, a small number of groups, and Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

The two Democrats had asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to remove the HOS suspension in the omnibus.

In addition to the $500 million in TIGER grants, the bill also provides:

• $40.3 billion for the federal-aid highways program (MAP-21), which is equal to the level enacted for fiscal year 2014.
• $1.39 billion for Amtrak
• $830 million for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), to allow NHTSA to make important investments in its safety defects analysis and investigation programs and improve the agency’s ability to aggressively screen defect trends.
• $104 million for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).

View the full bill here. HOS section begins at page 1443.

UPDATED December 13, 2014: There's still time to fight Congress's last-minute pension cut deal by calling and emailing your Senators today. Do it now. The vote could come Monday on the budget bill.

Click here to read AARP's letter of opposition.

Click here to read a Statement from the Pension Rights Center.

Click here to read a Statement by Senator Tom Harkin.

The proposed pension cuts amendment has now moved on to the Senate. They need to vote on it. We still have a chance to shoot down the earmark. 

Our allies in Washington encourage the following:

Contact your Senators ASAP.

We need them to say NO to the earmark on pensions. The legislation was developed behind closed doors. The 163 pages have barely been seen and have not been debated. There has been no discussion of the earmarked legislation. This is not a consensus proposal and is opposed by AARP, the Pension Rights Center, The International Association of Machinists, The Teamsters, The Steelworkers, and other organizations. 

Adding this earmark to the Funding Bill is a last minute maneuver to allow pension cuts that have been protected by ERISA for forty years. There is no reason to rush this through in this manner. 

As lawmakers pressed Monday to finalize the legislative language of a must-pass omnibus spending bill, labor unions and retiree groups were mobilizing to defeat what they are characterizing as a lame-duck sneak attack on the pensions of some already-retired workers.

At issue is an effort led by Reps. John Kline and George Miller, the top Republican and Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, to bring reforms to troubled multiemployer pensions. The exact language of the proposal had not yet been announced, and it was not clear whether House leaders had in fact decided whether it would be attached to the spending bill.

Click here to read more at National Journal.