[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 216 (Saturday, December 19, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7837-S7838]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Pensions

  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, another Congress is ending, a President's 
term is coming to a close, and, yet again, this Senate, the President, 
Washington have failed to address the pension crisis facing far too 
many workers.
  The American people are tired of waiting for us to do our jobs, and 
they are tired of being told by Leader McConnell and President Trump: 
You are on your own.
  The House has twice passed legislation that would address the 
multiemployer pension crisis, but under Leader McConnell the Senate has 
failed these Americans. As for the White House, I don't even think 
President Trump knows, much less cares, about the multiemployer pension 
crisis.
  We ought to be working to support all the workers and retirees around 
the country whose lives have been upended during this pandemic, and 
that should include more than a million Americans in multiemployer 
pension system. After a lifetime of hard work and service to our 
country, they have already waited too long for Congress to do its job 
and to protect the benefits that these workers earned through a 
lifetime of work.
  We have been trying to solve this crisis for years. The House has 
done its part. They passed the solution multiple times now. Mitch 
McConnell, the leader of the Senate, is deliberately blocking it, and 
his party and his Members and the President support him in blocking it.
  Senate Republicans said this week that after a year of negotiating 
and talking to stakeholders, they made substantial progress toward a 
common ground, but then they released legislation that walked back all 
the progress that we had made. It is a betrayal of the people whom we 
serve.
  This pension crisis affects retirees across the country of all 
political parties. Unions, chambers of commerce, and small businesses 
pretty much all agree that we need to get this done. Unfortunately, 
Mitch McConnell doesn't.
  There is no excuse for Senate Republicans standing in the way of a 
deal. This only gets more expensive the longer we wait. The longer we 
wait, the harder it will be to solve this. We waited year after year 
after year while Senator McConnell has simply twiddled his thumbs.
  The public health crisis and the economic crisis we are facing right 
now are not happening in a vacuum. The damage caused by the pandemic 
and the President's failures is layered on top of all the existing 
problems in our country, including the crisis facing these workers and 
retirees who are in danger of losing the retirement security that they 
earned. I always emphasize ``that they earned.''
  These pension plans were already in danger. Now the economic 
emergency we are in has put them in a worse position. We are talking 
about retirees who did everything right. They spent years working on 
assembly lines, bagging groceries, driving trucks, working 
construction--working hard to keep our economy going. Money came out of 
every single one of their paychecks to earn these pensions.
  People in this town don't understand the collective bargaining 
process. People give up dollars today at the bargaining table for the 
promise of a secure retirement with good healthcare and a pension. 
Think about that. These workers are sitting around a table with their 
representatives, bargaining, collectively bargaining with management, 
saying: OK, we will take a smaller salary. We will take a smaller 
hourly wage today so that money will go into pensions and healthcare.
  Yet because this Senate won't act, because Senator McConnell never 
calls us together to do this--to take care of workers--these workers 
are losing parts of their pension.
  This crisis in my State affects thousands of people. It affects the 
massive Central States Pension Plan, the Bricklayers Local 7, the Iron 
Workers Local 17, the Ohio Southwest Carpenters Pension Plan, the 
Bakers and Confectioners Pension Plan, and on and on and on and on.
  It touches every single State from Mississippi to Ohio, from 
Massachusetts to California--every State in this country. We are 
talking about our entire multiemployer pension system. If it collapses, 
it won't just be retirees who will feel the pain. Current workers will 
be stuck paying into pensions they will never receive.
  Small businesses will be left drowning in pension liabilities they 
can't afford to pay--small businesses that have been in the family for 
generations. And there are a number of them in Ohio, businesses that 
people in this body will have heard of that make products they use. 
Small businesses and family businesses could face bankruptcy. Workers 
will lose jobs as businesses are forced to close up shop.
  The effects will ripple across the entire country at a time when we 
can least afford it. We knew before the pandemic that this system could 
collapse. It is more likely to fail now. That is why the Senate must 
act.
  We know who will get hurt the most if the system collapses. It is not 
Wall Street. It is never Wall Street when it comes to Senator 
McConnell. It is never Wall Street that gets hurt. It is small 
businesses. It is their employees. It is the people who make this 
country work. Their lives, their livelihoods will be devastated if 
Congress fails again.
  Workers and retirees in Ohio and around the country have rallied in 
the name of Butch Lewis, a great Ohioan who helped lead this fight, who 
passed

[[Page S7838]]

away far too soon fighting for his fellow workers. His widow, Rita, has 
become my friend. She has continued this fight. She has become a leader 
and an inspiration to so many of us.
  I brought her to the State of the Union twice. She has made the trip 
here over and over, along with so many workers and retirees. They 
travel all day and night on buses. They have rallied in the bitter cold 
of the winter and in hot DC summers. Their government, their majority 
leader, their President refuse to listen and turn their backs.
  Rita once told me that retirees and workers struggling with this 
crisis feel like they are invisible. They feel like they are invisible. 
To far too many people in Washington, they are invisible. They are not 
invisible to me. They are not invisible to Speaker Pelosi or Leader 
Schumer or Senator Smith or Senator Peters or Chairman Neal or Chairman 
Scott--all of whom have joined with me on fighting for this--and to so 
many colleagues who worked for years now trying to find a bipartisan 
solution. We won't give up until these retirees' benefits are 
protected.
  It comes back to the dignity of work. When work has dignity, we honor 
the security--the retirement security--that people earned--again, 
sitting down at the bargaining table. Workers give up wages today to 
put money aside, matched by employers, generally, for the future, for 
this retirement.
  They made the right decision back then, but we are not making the 
right decision right now as their pensions are in trouble. I urge my 
colleagues in this body--colleagues with healthcare and retirement 
plans paid for by taxpayers, all of us who are in this body--to think 
about these retired workers and the stress they are facing.
  Join us. Let's pass a solution that honors their work. Let's honor 
their work. Let's honor the dignity of work. Let's keep our promise to 
them.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.