Retired Teamsters Meet with Congressman Jordan
June 29, 2016
By: Tom Jackson, Sandusky Register
June 29, 2016
Local retired Teamsters met with U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, and asked him to help keep the Central States Pension Fund from going broke.
The fund, hit by investment losses and hurt by changes in the trucking industry, is expected to go broke sometime in the next 10 years, absent intervention from Congress.
Dave Kilbride, a Berlin Heights resident, told Jordan that the Teamsters had paid into the fund and worked hard for their retirement.
"We played by the rules," he told Jordan, who met with about 25 retired Teamsters at the Twin Lakes Golf Course in Bellevue. It was common for the truck drivers to work 14, 15, 16 or 17 hours a day, he said.
He asked Jordan to support efforts to put federal money into the pension fund to save it.
"This is not a bailout. This is a payback. We paid our money in," Kilbride said.
Jordan said he has to look at any proposed rescue legislation before he can pledge to support it.
"I'll need to see what the bill looks like. You can't sign on to a bill until you see what's written," he said.
But Jordan compared the Teamsters' plight to the federal government's Social Security and Medicare programs. People have paid into it and expect promises to them to be honored, and Teamsters depending upon Central States are in a similar situation, he said.
Jordan said he'll also be interested in the results of investigations of Central States.
Members of the House and the Senate have asked the Government Accounting Office to investigate investments made by the Central States pension fund, which was put under federal control after allegations that the fund had been looted by organized crime.
On Tuesday, the GAO confirmed that it will carry out the study, as requested by U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and other lawmakers.
Jordan said members of Congress would have to try to find money to help the Teamsters as the federal government deals with an ongoing budget crisis. The country has a $19 trillion debt, more than $42,000 for every U.S. citizen, he said.
Jordan didn't do much talking but spent most of the meeting, about 45 minutes long, listening to the retired Teamsters. He explained that he had met with a similar group at the southern end of his district.
Central States handles pensions for Teamsters in the Midwest. Jordan asked how the Teamsters retirement funds for the other parts of the U.S. are doing, and the Teamsters explained that they are in good shape. Only Central States is in trouble, they said.