The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) announced today that it has approved the application submitted to the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) Program by the Pension Plan of the Printers League - Graphic Communications International Union Local 119B (GCIU Local 119B Plan). The plan, based in East Farmingdale, New York, covers 1,213 participants in the printing industry.
The GCIU Local 119B Plan became insolvent in August 2021. At that time, PBGC started providing financial assistance to the plan. As required by law, the GCIU Local 119B Plan reduced participants’ benefits to the PBGC guarantee levels, which was roughly 31 percent below the benefits payable under the terms of the plan.
PBGC's approval of the SFA application enables the plan to restore benefit reductions caused by the plan’s insolvency and to make payments to retirees to cover prior benefit reductions. SFA will enable the plan to pay retirement benefits without reduction for many years into the future. The plan will receive $85.2 million in SFA, including interest to the expected date of payment to the plan.
"These 1,213 printers went to work with the promise of a pension when they retired. Today, the Biden-Harris Administration has fulfilled that promise," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, chair of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation Board of Directors. "Under President Biden's American Rescue Plan, the Pension Plan of the Printers League - Graphic Communications International Union Local 119B received Special Financial Assistance to deliver the pensions that these workers have earned."
This application was submitted and approved under PBGC's interim final rule. PBGC’s final rule, published last month, becomes effective on August 8.
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