The Boston Globe reports:
A pension plan covering more than 72,000 truck drivers and warehouse workers represented by the New England Teamsters union is the nation’s second-most-underfunded multiemployer pension plan and is on track to run out of money within a decade, according to a new study.
The study, released Thursday by pension consulting firm Cheiron Inc., details a worsening crisis for US multiemployer plans. Under those plans, multiple small businesses such as trucking firms and liquor distributors jointly contribute to funds paying benefits to retired workers. But many are in industries such as construction, manufacturing, and transportation in which many companies have shut down, leaving fewer active workers to support a growing number of retirees.
Nationwide, the study said, 121 multiemployer plans covering 1.3 million workers are underfunded by a total of $48.9 billion and have told regulators they could slip into insolvency within 20 years. It said the Burlington-based New England Teamsters and Trucking Industry Pension Plan has an unfunded liability of $5.1 billion, second only to the $22.9 billion liability of the Teamsters’ Central States Fund, which also covers some workers in Massachusetts.
Guess what's the Democrat party bailout plan?
A pair of Democratic lawmakers, Representative Richard Neal of Springfield and Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, have filed legislation to offer federally guaranteed bonds that would shore up multiemployer pension plans. Separately, a bipartisan congressional committee, formed earlier this year, was tasked with coming up with recommendations to address the plans’ shortfall by Nov. 30, but thus far hasn’t done so. The panel is scheduled to dissolve at the end of the year.
The silent out of the books bailout in the working.
