Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. PETERS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Donnelly for bringing this issue to the floor. I also thank him for his leadership on this issue. He has fought for Indiana families day in and day out on the Senate floor. They are facing a crisis now as the people of Michigan are facing a crisis. As the Senator spoke about a fair deal, I can say, with a great deal of certainty, that the people of Michigan, just like the people of Indiana, believe a deal is a deal. This is a saying we have all heard, but it is also something on which we should all agree throughout the country.

The American commitment to honoring contracts is part of why our economy is the greatest in the world. Businesses know that if their partners in duly executed deals back out, they have access to the full power of our courts and our legal system to make them whole. This is basic fairness. A deal is a deal. Workers deserve the same fairness. Workers who have banded together to negotiate for pensions during their retirements in exchange for lower upfront pay deserve the pensions they have earned.

Generations of Americans have built their lives around the idea that if you work hard and play by the rules, you will have a fair shot at success. The certainty that hard work will be rewarded empowers Americans to achieve economic security, provide for loved ones, and retire with dignity, but for many Americans who have spent decades working hard, their retirements are now at risk.

Tens of thousands of Michiganders will be denied their hard-earned retirements if Congress does not act to protect the pension benefits they have earned. More than 400,000 Americans, including over 47,000 in Michigan, will face massive cuts to their pensions if the Central States Pension Fund is allowed to fail. Central States is not the only multiemployer pension plan that is on a rapid path to insolvency. As many as 200 financially troubled plans are at risk of being closed while the retirements of 1.5 million Americans hang in the balance.

When Michiganders contact me about this issue, they are frustrated and angry, but more than anything else, they are afraid. They are afraid they will lose their homes. They are afraid they will be unable to afford the healthcare they need. They are afraid they could, one day, become burdens on their adult children.

I appreciate that it is not very easy to share very personal fears, but I would like to share some of the stories I have heard from Michigan retirees and from folks who are hoping to retire soon.

Carl from Menominee would have to sell his house and find a new job he and his aching joints would, hopefully, be able to handle at the age of 72, after 30 years of hard physical labor.

Jan and his wife Thelma, from Deerfield, would lose the home Jan built over 50 years ago with his own two hands. Although Thelma still works and pays into a pension plan, she will not receive the benefits she has earned over the last decade--ever since the troubled plan froze the funds for active workers. For people like Thelma, the uncertainty of pension cuts is quickly becoming a harsh reality.

William from Erie is enduring an 80-percent cut to his pension. He describes it as the worst thing that could have possibly ever happened to him and his wife in their golden years. William is a Navy veteran who drove 120 miles to and from work every day to keep his pension and the promise of a comfortable retirement. The extreme cuts he is facing have forced him to go back to work. He had to overcome multiple barriers to senior employment in order to land a minimum-wage job. The job pays for basic necessities, like electricity, food, and heat, but he still cannot afford health insurance for his wife, who is still more than a year away from qualifying for Medicare.

These Americans made deals with their employers--decades of hard work in exchange for fair earnings and decent retirements. A deal is a deal. We have the FDIC to make sure Americans don't lose their life savings if banks go under. We have federally backed crop insurance to help protect farmers who face unpredictable growing seasons. We even have federally backed mortgage insurance to protect banks if homeowners can't pay their mortgages.

Workers like Carl, Thelma, and William are not asking for handouts. They are asking for the pension benefits they earned, that they bargained for, and that they worked their entire lives to secure. A deal is a deal. We must make this right.

I urge my colleagues to stand up for American workers and support the Butch Lewis Act. We must address pension insolvency without sacrificing workers' hard-earned benefits.

I thank Senator Donnelly for bringing this issue to the floor. I am with him, and we need to bring our colleagues with us as well.

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