Date: 2006-05-03
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. Members of the House. this debate is quite fundamental. It is about fairness. I have worked in a lot of oil refineries. I have worked in very cold mornings and very cold nights. and I. have worked at the top of cracking towers. and I have cleaned out tanks. and I have worked on the ships that moved the oil across the seas. I thought every day I was working in those efforts I was working hard and trying to have that company be a success so they could pay me and I could support my family. I am sure that is how many workers work. whether they work for Chevron or Exxon or IBM or anyone else. People in America take their work very. very seriously. It identifies them. It is important to them. They show up. They do their job. Yet the system is structured against them. and .this pension system is completely structured against them. Because whether it is Enron or whether it is Exxon or whether it is IBM. what we see is the constant manipulation of the pension plans of these workers to benefit the CEOs. This amendment says a very simple thing. It says. you have to treat these workers the same. You do not get to put one worker in a trick box because you do not fund the pension at 80 percent. so. therefore. they cannot have the choice of a COLA or lump sum or an annuity plan. But the CEO. if it is not funded. if it is only funded at 60 percent. they can run the gamut. They can take whatever choice they want. They can take their money now and leave. If they think the company is not going to do well. take a lump sum. secure yourself. go buy an annuity. But the average worker does not get to do that. and that is why millions of American families now are feeling so terribly threatened about their retirement future. because they do not know whether or not this pension will continue to be manipulated. And the fact of the matter is. the House bill. as it was reported. continues to let people manipulate the pensions of hardworking Americans for the benefit of the executives and the CEOs. and that is why we are saying we want a fairer bill like what was passed in the Senate that treats people similarly. What is the incentive for the company to fund its pension plan above 80 percent so that these workers can get a COLA. so that these workers can get a lump sum payment? None. None. There is no price to be paid for being at 80 percent. You get all of the benefits you want as the CEO. as the president of the company. as the executive secretary. as its executive vice president. You get all of your benefits..Life is fine for you. It is just the thousands of people who are working for you that make the company a success that get discriminated against. You know. we have had a series of ehearings where we talked to people whose pensions were threatened at United. at Delta. at Delphi. at all of those companies. You are talking about the livelihood. the absolute livelihood of those people in terms of their retirement. You are talking about their hopes and their aspirations and their dreams for their retirement nest egg. what they were going to do with their life after years of hard work. And all that can just evaporate through the manipulation of these plans by CEOs and executives. And it is all legal. It is all allowed under the law. and it is allowed under your bill. It is allowed under your bill. that kind of manipulation against hardworking people. At some point. this House has to ask itself. is that fair? Is that just? Is that moral? And the answer is. it is not. When you see the turmoil. when you go home and talk to your constituents and they talk about the foreclosure of their plans and their dreams for their retirement. when they talk about the burden now of trying to take care of a sick spouse because their retirement has been reduced. their retirement has been eliminated. they have been given some measly payout. then you start to understand how unfair this pension system is in this country and how badly it has been manipulated. It is not me that is saying that. A few months ago. the Wall Street Journal ran almost a full page article on the many. many. many ways that pension plans are manipulated to benefit the shareholders. to benefit the stock options. to benefit the compensation plans. to benefit the retirement plans of CEOs. So all of those benefits. to the detriment of the workers. They are tricked up every year on assumptions of income. assumptions of interest rates. assumptions of payouts. assumptions of longevity. All of those things are used to manipulate the pension plans. and. generally. the result is that the worker is left holding the bag. It is one of the reasons we have so many plans that are underfunded. Exxon has all of this profit. Think if they funded their plan from 72 percent to 80 percent. These employees would have a choice. But if they do not do that. they do not have to worry about these employees having a choice. That is what is being addressed in the conference committee. It is about this fundamental fairness for hardworking people. When you lose your pension or a significant portion of your pension when you are 50. 53. 55. 58 years old. where do you go as a middleclass working person in this country to regather those assets so you can have the retirement that you were planning on and your spouse was planning on? Where do you go to get that. to take care of your health care needs in your retirement years? To take care of your rising energy costs in a country without an energy policy? Where do you. go to get those resources? The answer is you do not go anywhere. Maybe you take a job after retirement. some parttime job because you lost what you were planning on. you lost what you were paid into because of this corporate manipulation. This amendment. this motion to instruct is simply about the fairness with which we are going to treat working people in this country. And are we going to put an end to it? We would like to doit under the slogan of President Bush. who talked about the equity. how people should have been treated the same at Enron.. But. no. that CEO was lying to those people on the bottom floor of that corporation and then running up to corporate penthouse and selling his stock secretly IHI2075 Mb 3.:2006 into a trust and then telling his son to secretly sell his stock. They walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars at the time that the company was imploding. But "they ran downstairs and they told theemployees. it is a great company. we are on the "verge of big breakthroughs. buy more stock. Jail is too good for those people. And the lives that they have wrecked. we heard testimony in this Congress- from those people who worked for that company who lost their future. who lost their life savings. who lost their retirement. who lost their plans. Jail is too good for Ken Lay. and his ilk. But we have got to stop it now when we- have the opportunity in the rewrite of the pension bill. That is what this motion is about. I urge people in the name of fairness and decency. for working people in this country. to vote for the Miller motion to instruct.