Several of the IBEW's highest legislative priorities were signed into law Dec. 20.

Repealing the so-called Cadillac Tax on union healthcare plans has been at the top of the IBEW legislative agenda for nearly a decade, but never made it past Congress.

But, with a Democratic majority in the House and $1.4 trillion spending package that needed to pass before Christmas as leverage, a coalition of labor unions that included the IBEW were able to push the repeal over the line, said Political and Legislative Department Director Austin Keyser. The bill also included a rescue for the Mine Workers' pension plan, a failing fund that put pressure on the entire multiemployer pension system, and a raise for federal workers including tens of thousands of IBEW members.

"What changed? What changed is [Republican incumbent Kentucky Governor Matt] Bevin lost. The day after that election [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell signed on to save the Mineworkers' fund," Keyser said. "McConnell is a politician. He looked at Scott Walker and looked at Bevin and all the others we've sent packing and he reached the reasonable conclusion that working people aren't sitting back and taking it anymore. If he continued to stand against common-sense solutions for working families, he would have been joining those others in involuntary retirement."

The House passed the 2019 Omnibus Spending Bill — which included the two provisions — Dec. 19 and the Senate passed and sent it to the White House before the previous spending bill expired on Dec. 21.

As originally written, the Cadillac Tax would have punished union-negotiated health plans with close to a 40% surcharge. The impact would have been devastating and Congress repeatedly delayed implementation under IBEW pressure.

But just the threat of the tax was wreaking havoc at the bargaining table for much of the last decade.

"We've been negotiating three-year deals and Congress kept delaying the tax for two years. We had to plan as if it would be a reality in year three," Keyser said. "We've been giving away hard-won benefits only to see them delay for another two years, which is all well and good, but we're still worse off for no reason."

There had been bipartisan support for repealing the Cadillac Tax but Republican leadership only supported it as part of larger bills to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act. The decade-long effort to repeal the ACA has finally lost steam, and the repeal was one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's first priorities when the Democrats took over in 2019, Keyser said.

The Mine Workers' Pension rescue was also released from the ice jam on Capitol Hill, mere months before the fund could have fallen into default.

The Bipartisan American Miners Act rescues the near-insolvent pension by using money from the 40-year-old Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Fund, which cleans up the ecological damage left behind when mining companies go out of business.

"It's like a Superfund program for mines," Keyser said.

The program is funded by a per-ton fee on coal mining and an assessment in bankruptcy court when mining companies go out of business, which nearly all have.

"The elegance of this solution is that the fund is in surplus, so we can rescue the pension without a single additional dollar of federal money," Keyser said.

Keyser said the credit goes to West Virginia Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

"They understood it isn't enough to clean up the environmental damage left when these companies abandoned their communities. We have to clean up the personal damage when those companies abandoned their workers," he said.

Rescuing the Mine Workers' pension fund also relieves some of the pressure on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the federal insurance program for multi-employer pension funds. In recent years, Republican lawmakers have used the default threat from orphaned pension plans like the Mine Workers' fund as an excuse to raise taxes and fees on healthy pensions plans like those run by the IBEW.

"This doesn't solve every problem. The Teamsters' Central States fund is much larger and still has to be solved, but this was the immediate emergency," Keyser said.

In other welcome news, the bill includes a 3.1% pay raise for civilian federal employees, though it is too soon to be certain that this would extend to all of the tens of thousands of federal IBEW workers and contractors. President Trump initially offered no raise, then 2.6% before finally acceding to a 3.1% bump.

"We say it all the time: If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Labor and friends of labor got back to the table after the 2018 election. This is what happens when you win," Keyser said.