Date: 2006-07-28
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. this motion does two things. First. it sends the pension bill back to committee to include all of theairline protection provisions that were included in the Senatepassed pension bill. Second. it seeks to send back to the committee to add the Senatepassed provisions providing for the transition protections for older workers affected by cash balance conversions. Both of these are critical to protecting Americas workers pensions and their retirement security. All across America. employees are worried sick about their retirement nest egg. They have seen big airlines like U.S. Air and United cut and run on their obligations to paypromised benefits and are wondering if they are next. The House bill protects Delta and Northwest and enables them to extend their pension payments over 17 years at the plans interest rate. However. the bill only provides American and Continental a 10year payment and at a much lower interest rate. making their pension payments much higher. We would extend the same period of time. workout time. for the airlines if they chose to provide for the freezing of their plans. The bill does nothing for airline pilots who are forced to retire at age 60 and who received PBGC pensions reduced by 35 percent because of their age. All airlines were hurt by 9/11 and the skyrocketing fuel prices and the downturn in the economy. It would be devastating to hundreds of thousands of workers across the Nation if more airlines were permitted to dump their plans into the PBGC. When this happens. the big losers are the employees. Look at what happened to the pilots at United. for example. They had vested pension benefits cut in half. The average pilot lost $1.270 a month. That is why we offer these protections. Finally. the motion would report back this pension bill to provide for the protection of older workers who are facing conversions in cash balance plans. This means the older workers who the companies are now putting on notice that they will lower their benefits will now get a substitute plan called a cash balance plan. Despite overwhelming votes in support of protecting older workers pensions in the House and Senate. Republican leadership has excluded these vital transition protections. Many workers will lose hundreds of dollars a month in expected retirement benefits. Many of these workers will be in excess of 50 years of age. and it is highly unlikely they will be able to recover the retirement benefits that they have been counting on for many years. that they signed a contract for in exchange for their labor with their employers. Today. the Congress is getting ready to tell them they are not going to make the employers live up to their agreements. and we are not going to even provide a transition to soften the economic blow when those agreements are changed. Here is what AARP CEO William Novelli said -about the backroom Republican deal for older workers: "AARP cannot support legislation that would undermine the age discrimination laws and prevent the reduction of pension benefits for older workers. thus discouraging older workers from continuing to participate in the workforce." unless they get a second job to make up for the loss of their retirement. of course. "Our members and older workers in general care a great detail about these issues." That is why we brought this motion to recommit. Again. time and again the House and Senate have voted to provide these protections for older workers. We would have carried that message to the conference committee. but we were not allowed into those discussions and apparently the conference committee couldnt hear the Members of this House on the bipartisan basis that voted overwhelmingly to provide these protections. both to the airlines and .to the older workers. Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my time.