Date: 2006-07-25
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. and I rise yet again with another motion to instruct the conferees of H.R. 2830. the pension bill currently in conference. These repeated motions have become necessary in light of the failure of the Republican conferees to include all conferees and to hear all voices. The House Democrats have been locked out of this conference since last March. so we have come to the floor again and again with motions to instruct that would press the conferees to protect Americas workers and retirees from some of the worst proposals in these bills now being considered in that conference committee. Again and again. the House has voted overwhelmingly to support these instructions but the Republican conferees dont seem to be getting the message. or they dont seem to care. So I am calling on my colleagues to speak again. and this time a little louder. This is a new motion that would provide greater protections for workers pensions in five critical areas.. First. Protecting older workers benefits in the cash balance conversion when pension plans convert from the defined benefit plan. Two. Ensuring that airline pilots do not see unfair cuts to their PBGC. the Pension Benefits Guarantee Corporation. because the FAA required them to retire at age 60. Three. Providing stretchout payments for an airline industry that has been shaken by 9/11 and rising fuel costs. Four. Allowing for the alternative funding agreements when a plan is in trouble so that we can avoid the dumping of pension plans like what happened with the United Airlines debacle. Five. Providing for more equal treatment of executive and worker pensions. If we are going to restrict workers pensions when a plan is underfunded. we should also restrict the executives that. in many instances. are responsible for that underfunding of the pension plans. After all. it is the executives who decide whether or not to fund. the pension plan. From all the reports we have received to date. it sounds like the conferees are not moving to include these items in the conference report. despite the fact that the House has repeatedly instructed the conferees to includethese worker protections. Let us go through these one by one and let us understand that this is about the protection of workers. it is about the protection of retirees. and it is about the protection of their families. because it is about the pension plans that these workers now have as a matter of their bargaining. their agreements. and their contracts with their employers. What we have now seen. and what too many workers have seen and what the American public has witnessed. is that employer after employer is announcing to workers that they are going to forego the support for a defined benefit plan. they are going to forego the support for health care benefits. and workers now see they are trapped. In many instances. those changes. those decisions by the employer snag workers who have no ability to restore that -retirement nest egg. that they are going to lose when the employer decides that they are going to terminate the pension plan. That is why we are offering this motion to instruct. to try to protect the retirement nest egg of hardworking � Americans and their families from being devastated by the decisions of the employers on the termination or the dumping of the pension plans into the PBGC. So let us walk through what we are trying to do here. First. The protection for older workers in a cash balance conversion. This motion to instruct would have the conferees in the Senate make sure they prohibit against the discrimination of older workers by the practice of offsetting the earned benefit plans they have now with the new cash balance plans. and to make sure that we understand what the GAO has told us. that unless we provide some transition protection. almost all workers could lose up to 50 percent of their expected pension benefits. Listen to that again. Almost allworkers could lose up to almost 50 percent of their expected pension benefits. Again. those older workers. 50. 55. 60 years old. will lose the most. Those are the same workers who have the least ability to save more money for their retirement. to earn more money for their retirement. They will take the biggest hit. We are asking that at a minimum. you protect- employees that are 5 years away from retirement because they do not have the ability to secure additional funds for their retirement. It means a dramatic diminishment of their the retirement plans. of their financial resources for their retirement. for their health care. for the sustaining of their families. That is why it is so important to understand that. This is what responsibleemployers have done. whether it is Verizon. or Honeywell. or Wells Fargo Bank or CSX Railroad. But other employers have chosen not do this. and now they -want the protection of the law as they take away these benefits of the older workers. It is also what the Congress chose to do. We chose to provide a transition for Members of Congress as we changed the retirement plan of Congress to the TSP plan as opposed to a defined benefit plan. If it is good enough for Congress. why isnt it good enough for these workers and for their families? Obviously. when the Members of Congress have been asked to vote on this. they have voted overwhelmingly. In 2002. an amendment -to take care of these older workers passed 328121. in 2003. it passed 258160. in 2004. it passed 237162. The motion to instruct this past April. the House voted 248178 to tell the conferees to protect these older workers. Unfortunately. either the conferees are hard of hearing or they simply dont care about these older workers. because it appears that when the conference report comes back in the next day or two on the pension bill. these older workers will not be protected. [ 1700 Second. the case of the airlines. The motion to instruct would have the conferees agree to the Senate provision ensuring that pilots get their full pension guaranteed from the Pension Guarantee Corporation. They get their full pension. for those who were required to retire at an early age. So you have pilots who were required. under Federal law. to retire at age 60. The pension plan was terminated. through no fault of the pilots. in many cases because of 9/11 or higher fuel costs. and now they are being punished because the Pension Guarantee Corporation will only give you a full benefit if you retire at age 65. They had no ability to retire at age 65 because Federal law kept them from doing so. We think that. in fact. we ought to protect those employees. And the motion would limit the treatment of those pension plans to those that were terminated after. September 11. 2001. The fix is needed now. United airline pilots are seeing their pensions cut by tens of thousands of dollars each year under you the pension guarantee rules. The retirement nest eggs have been devastated. but they have been twice. once by the unfair dumping of the pension plans and the PBGC by United. and now because the law says that they cannot have those full benefits because they retired before 65. In a motion this past March. the House voted 265158 to instruct the conferees to give these pilots their full guarantee. Once again. the conferees either cant here the House of .Representatives. they dont care about the House of Representatives. or they dont care about these workers. because they are not choosing to protect these pilots to the extent to which they should be. Third. we deal with the question of the airlines. We all know that airlines have been hurt by skyrocketing fuel prices since 9/11. They have been hurt by a lack of travel immediately after 9/ 11. and we have seen one airline after another go into bankruptcy. We have seen United Airlines terminate its pension plans and dump $10 billion of liability onto the PBGC. its workers. its retirees and the taxpayers. We have seen the U.S. Airways dump its pension plan. and we have read how Delta is now seeking to dump its pension plan. It would be devastating to hundreds of thousands of workers across this Nation if more airlines were permitted to dump their plans into the PBGC. These provisions that we are asking the conferees to impose give the airlines the ability to keep their plans going by stretching out their payments over 20 years instead of 7 years. And these provisions should be made available to all the airlines. not just a select few airlines. They should be available to those airlines that have frozen their plans. as well as those that meet the requirements of the Senate bill to keep their plans running. In March. the motion to instruct. the House voted 265158 to provide the airlines with these critical reforms. with this lifeline for their economic health and the wellbeing of their workers. But the conferees so far havent heard us and we need to speak louder. Fourth. the alternative funding agreements. The motion to instruct would have the conferees agree to the Senate provisions. which passed 972. designed to prevent the pension plan dumping. These provisions allow the PBGC. the Treasury Secretary to enter. into an alternative funding agreement with an employer if its pension plan is in danger of being terminated. If workers and retirees are facing the destruction of their pension plans. Congress should give the PBGC and the Treasury Departments the flexibility to work out alternatives to termination. If such alternatives to simply dumping the plan were available during the United Airline crisis. the largest pension termination in history. it may have been averted. A lot more needs to be done in this area so that we dont see just the callous dumping into the bankruptcy of the pension plans by these corporations that devastates their workers and their retirees. Fifth. and maybe this is one of the more serious ones. and that is a question of executive compensation. This motion to instruct would have the conferees agree to the Senate provision. again. passed 972. on executive compensation that would treat workers and executive pensions equally. Under the House bills. workers pension benefits are restricted if a pension falls below 80 percent funding. But what we see is there is no benefit on the executives unless it falls less than 60 percent funding. What we are saying is what the President of the United States. Mr. Bush. said during -the Enron catastrophe. what is good for the captain is good for the crew. Once again. it is the executives that make decisions about funding these pension plans. But if they fall below 80 percent. the workers get restricted. but the executives continue to get -their pensions. to get their benefits. to get all of the executive perks in that operation. We think that that ought to change. We think it is very clear that the executives. what they have done. in many instances. they ensure their pension plans outside of the bankruptcy system. So as they take the company into bankruptcy. they are guaranteed that they will get a life time pension worth millions of dollars. The workers get bankruptcy and get devastated and lose halfof their benefits if they go to. the Pension Guarantee Corporation. We believe the President is right. What is good for the captain is good for the crew. and that we ought to do this. Again. this past May. in a motion to instruct. the House voted 299125 to instruct these conferees. And what do you believe is going to happen? Apparently. the conferees are going to again ignore that vote. They are going to ignore the will of this House. They are going to ignore the will of the American people to have equity and fairness in the treatment "of executives and workers during the troubled times for pension plans. So this motion to instruct is to take those five areas and to instruct the conferees at this llth hour to deal with the fairness and the equity in the Pension Reform Bill to make sure that hardworking Americans dont have to crash to the floor. lose their homes. lose their retirement. lose their health care as we restructure pensions. and to make sure that we do treat the million dollar a year or the $10 million or the $20 million. $50 million a year executive. that we treat them the same as we treat the workers. Very few workers in this country have any say in whether or not these pension plans are underfunded. We saw that in the case of Enron. They were running downstairs telling the employees to buy the Enron stock. and they were running upstairs and selling their stock into the market because they knew the company was going to collapse. We think people ought to be treated fairly. They ought to be treated equally and clearly. clearly. we ought not to discriminate against older workers. That is what this motion to instruct does. Hopefully. when we send it. this motion to instruct. later this evening. the conference committee will hear us. They will hear the American people. They will quit ignoring the American people. They will quit dealing just with the special interests inside the Beltway. and doing what. is good for the special interests. as opposed to what is good for the American public. what is good for the retirement systems in this country. what is good for the economy in this country. and what is fair to the workers and to their families. Mr. Speakgr. I reserve the balance of my time.