Weeks ago, two Republican senators unveiled a plan that threatens to destroy the multiemployer pension system that provides retirement security to hundreds of thousands of IBEW members.
You can read more about it here.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee want you to believe that they’re trying to fix a serious problem threatening a few major troubled pensions.
“What they’re really doing is threatening to undermine the entire pension system by raising taxes on your retirement benefits by 10% and placing unreasonable fees on healthy plans that could bring the entire system crumbling down,” said Political and Legislative Affairs Director Austin Keyser. “They bailed out the banks and billionaires, but when it comes time to help working families, we’re left out in the cold.”
While the Grassley-Alexander plan is still just a proposal, International President Lonnie R. Stephenson, International Secretary-Treasurer Kenneth W. Cooper and other union leaders believe it to be one of the biggest threats to the labor movement in recent memory.
“It’s not often I come to members pleading that you pick up the phone, but this is one of those times,” Stephenson said. “The truth is, we don’t know when this plan will turn into actual legislation – it could be next week, it could be next year – but we don’t want to let it ever get to that point. It’s too dangerous for IBEW members not to put on a full-court press and kill it now.
“If each and every one of our 775,000 members calls their senators, we can stop this thing dead in its tracks. Get your families to call too. This is that important,” Stephenson said.
The AFL-CIO has set up a toll-free number to direct union members to their senators. Tell them to reject the Grassley-Alexander proposal and support legislation like the Butch Lewis Act that will protect the retirement benefits you worked so hard to earn.
Call 844-551-6921 today.