Retirement

The funds are deposited in OregonSaves, a state-sponsored retirement account for workers who don’t otherwise have a retirement plan.

A Portland-based chef educator leads a cooking class for Local 290’s retirees wellness program. She says healthy eating starts with tastiness.

The Central States pension, which covers 357,056 workers and surviving spouses, will receive $35.8 billion in “special financial assistance."

Local plasterers and members of OPEIU Local 11 have reason to rejoice after final rules for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Fund were announced.

A new book aims to explain retirement plans to union leaders. It began with what the author calls the worst financial mistake of his life.

Pension plans that cut retiree benefits to restore solvency would face the toughest dilemma under the pension rescue rules announced July 9.

“This is a historic achievement to secure the pension benefits of hardworking union members, and the most substantial policy ever passed to further the solvency of our nation's multiemployer pension plans,” said U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh in a July 9 press statement about newly issued rules implementing a government rescue of failing pension funds. Walsh, pictured above at a June 24 event in Indianapolis, is a former leader of Laborers Local 223 and the Boston Building Trades Council.

The just-passed COVID relief bill will rescue and restore over 100 declining union pension plans.

Congress' latest COVID relief bill would also shore up declining union-sponsored multi-employer pensions and restore pension benefits.

The Oregon Supreme Court say lawmakers can cut benefits going forward, just not benefits employees have already earned.

Republicans wanted deeper cuts, Oregon’s House Speaker Tina Kotek and fellow Portland House Democrat Rob Nosse told public sector union members.

Plaintiffs say SB 1049 is a breach of contract, an illegal taking, and violates the Constitution.

The bill would give federal loans to union multi-employer pension plans to prevent their collapse.

The Butch-Lewis Act would lend money to pension plans to give them a chance to recover.

Top Democrats propose to cut public employee compensation and divert those resources to fund employer obligations to the pension system, but a coalition of public employee unions plans to fight the cuts in the Capitol and in the courts if need be.

The 2008 financial crisis is still claiming new victims.

The Joint Select Committee on Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans was supposed to vote on a solution to the looming crisis in union-sponsored pensions by the end of November.

As of Oct. 1, pension benefits were cut as much as 30 percent for retired members of Office and Professional Employees International Union in the Western United States.

Without a cut of up to 30 percent of benefits, the pension fund is headed for collapse in 18 years.

Without a 30% pension cut, the fund will be insolvent in 18 years.