The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) announced today that $112.6 million has been paid in special financial assistance to the Local 138 Pension Plan (Local 138 Plan), a financially troubled multiemployer pension plan based in Baldwin, N.Y.
The Local 138 Plan, covering 1,723 participants in the transportation industry, is the first plan to receive funds under the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) Program. The plan had been projected to run out of money early this year.
Without the Special Financial Assistance Program, the Local 138 Plan would have been required to reduce participants’ benefits to the PBGC guarantee levels upon plan insolvency, which is roughly 20 percent below the benefits payable under the terms of the plan. Special financial assistance will enable the plan to continue to pay retirees’ benefits without reduction for many years into the future.
“Today’s disbursement to the Local 138 Pension Plan is a historic achievement that is the culmination of years of efforts by employers, unions, retirees and advocates to secure the retirement benefits of over 250 multiemployer pension plans,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, chair of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation Board of Directors. “Without Special Financial Assistance delivered by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, this pension plan would have run out of money early this year diminishing the retirement benefits these union workers and retirees were promised in return for years of hard work.”
