Thousands of retired Teamsters — including two busloads from the Akron area — will pressure federal lawmakers Thursday at a rally in Washington, D.C., to ward off deep pension cuts expected to start this summer.
“The rally is going to be on the west front lawn of the U.S. Capitol,” said Mike Walden, a retired Teamster from Cuyahoga Falls and head of the Northeast Ohio Committee to Protect Pensions.
Nine buses from Ohio, each carrying about 50 people, will travel to the rally, Walden said. Other Ohio residents will drive or fly down on their own, he said.
The Ohio group will join retirees coming in from all across the U.S., he said.
“What we hope to accomplish is to wake members of Congress up,” Walden said.
The goal is to delay, change or even repeal the Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014 that allows pension cuts of more than 50 percent — and as high as 69 percent — for many retirees in the financially troubled Central States pension plan that covers hundreds of thousands of Teamsters.
The bipartisan act, backed by some unions and signed into law by President Obama, was designed to keep solvent financially troubled multiemployer pension plans in part by allowing the plans to reduce pension payouts to current retirees. Central States filed paperwork seeking federal government permission to start cutting pensions this year.
Pat Hanna, a Teamster office worker at YRC Worldwide offices in Copley Township, is pondering whether to retire at the end of the year or to keep on working. She will be on one of the two Akron buses that leaves for Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night.
“I’m going with a friend of mine who is retired,” said Hanna. The 65-year-old owns her home in Green.
She has received a letter that says her upcoming pension of about $2,200 a month would be cut by $467 a month under Central States’ proposal.
“I think it’s terrible,” she said. “I don’t want to be poor. I did that when I was young.”
Hanna said she hopes the rally will persuade lawmakers to repeal the 2014 law. It took her and other Teamsters decades to get a good pension, she said.
“This is something we all worked for,” she said. “I’m so bummed out I can’t believe it. You hope you can afford what you had before. … When I do retire, I don’t want to have to go work someplace else part time. I paid my dues. I want to help my kids. So, I’m afraid. I’ll be honest. I’m afraid.”
Walden said he is optimistic that Central States will not be allowed to cut pensions this summer.
May 7 is the deadline to approve or deny the Central States application. If approved, pension cuts could be implemented starting July 1. Kenneth Feinberg, a prominent attorney, is reviewing the Central States plan on behalf of the U.S. Treasury.
“Many of us feel Ken Feinberg will deny the application,” Walden said. “I don’t feel we’ll have a reduction July 1st.”
The retirees want to find a way to make Central States solvent “and to look at all reasonable solutions before reductions are made,” Walden said.
Rally speakers include Ohio’s two U.S. senators, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Rob Portman; and U.S. Reps. Tim Ryan, D-Howland, and Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo. Other speakers include Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren; a representative from the office of Vermont Sen. (and Democrat presidential candidate) Bernie Sanders; Teamsters President James Hoffa; Pension Rights Center Vice President Karen Friedman; and others.
Kaptur and Sanders co-sponsored legislation, the Keep Our Pension Promises Act, that would repeal the 2014 law.
Portman introduced legislation, the Pension Accountability Act, that would give workers and retirees a binding vote on pension plan changes.
The speakers are scheduled from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Summit County Council on Monday night unanimously passed a resolution opposing the pension cuts. The resolution was passed on to the congressional representatives whose districts are in the county, the state’s two U.S. senators, and also to Feinberg.
Tim Smith, a 68-year-old retired Teamster from Fairlawn, said he hopes the rally as well as other efforts will lead to a repeal of the law. He and his wife will be on one of the Akron buses. Smith is also a member of the Northeast Ohio Committee to Protect Pensions.
He wants an open process that leads to a fair and equitable solution that includes input from retirees, he said.
“We know the fund is in trouble,” Smith said.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow him @JimMackinnonABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/JimMackinnonABJ.