Date: 2006-03-08
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. Members. this is a very straightforward proposition. This is about whether or not this House of Representatives will go on record to try. and give the airlines the ability. the time. and the means by which they may treat their employees better by holding onto their current pension plans. whether they freeze them or they take some other action in conjunction with their employees so that their employees will not be thrown for the loss that the United employees saw when that company decided that it would use the PBGC. the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. just as a convenient tool to discharge in bankruptcy those employees pension plans that devastated those employees. the United erffployees. and devastated their families. Why are we doing this on this legislation? Because it is very interesting. through the course of this legislation during the consideration in the committee and on the floor. we could never quite get a vote on airlines. Now we are going into a conference committee. and the Republicans say. oh. everything is going to be just fine. And yet we know that already this- conference commfttee is starting to attract attention. that this may be a vehicle for other measures that are unable to move in this Congress. And so we do not know what is going to be in play. So we wanted to make sure that the Members of the House have the opportunity to say that these airlines ought to be able to try and work this out. The other factor is that time is rungoing to have to declare and make a decision relatively soon. We do not know if this conference is going to be committed. So it is just a question for the Members. do you or do you not want to be able to be on record to suggest that this would be better treatment for these employees. hopefully for these companies. than what happened under the . United pension plan. You saw what Mr. POMEROY said: many. many business executives. people involved in the pension business. have looked at this bill. and they have said that this bill is going to make it more difficult. make it more costly and probably lead to . additional terminations. The Pension Benefit. Guaranty Corporation. the people that handle this problem when all else fails. told us this is worse than current law. Now. you can ride that animal if you want. but you may also. if you are deeply concerned about the airline employees in your area. you may also want to vote for this motion to instruct so we send a clear message to the House conferees and the committee. have refused to have this vote at any stage of the process. that we be allowed to have a vote. and that we support the .effort of having the airlines be able to work this provision out. That is what this motion to instruct does. It is important. It is important to the airlines. It is important to the employees. It is important to their families. It is important to how we look at solving this difficult problem of holding onto peoples retirement nest eggs and to the pension plans that they are currently in. This is presented as some great pension reform. It really does little or nothing to forestall the trend that we now see developing in terms of the termination of pension plans and people losing their retirement nest eggs. Mr. Speaker. I would urge the House to support the motion to instruct.