CLEVELAND — When work has dignity, everyone can earn a secure retirement. Pensions are critical to the economic security of families who depend on these benefits to afford the rent or the mortgage, their prescription drugs and medical bills, and more.
On April 15, the two of us joined U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan and Mayors Tito Brown of Youngstown and Nan Whaley of Dayton in leading a virtual roundtable discussion on the historic work we did in President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan to save the multiemployer pension plans that tens of thousands of Ohioans earned over a lifetime of work.
Multiemployer plans allow union workers with different employers to earn and save for a secure retirement, making it easier for workers to move between employers in industries like plumbing or trucking, while earning a pension. They allow small businesses that want to do right by their workers, but who are too small to set up pension plans on their own, to support their workers’ retirements. Workers negotiated for these pensions at the bargaining table, often giving up wage increases in exchange for the promise of a secure retirement.