I was out with illness yesterday, so that is why there were no posts here. Today is full of so much news that I’m afraid I cannot do it all justice.
The Wall Street Journal today is reporting: “House Moves to Prevent Proposed Pension Rules.” Other reports:
The Wall Street Journal gives a full account of what has been transpiring. The amendment, which was tacked on to the Fiscal 2004 Transportation-Treasury Appropriations Bill, would prohibit any funds in the bill from being used to assist in overturning the ruling of a federal court that a corporation using cash balance pension conversions would be in violation of federal law. The amendment is, of course, aimed at the Treasury which is apparently poised to issue regulations regarding cash balance plans. The amendment is also referring to this case which was handed down this summer by a federal district court of Southern Illinois holding that IBM’s cash balance plan violated ERISA.
Text of the Amendment from the Congressional Record:
Amendment offered by Mr. Sanders:
At the end of the bill, insert after the last section (preceding the short title) the following new section:
SEC. 742. None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used to assist in overturning the judicial ruling contained in the Memorandum and Order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois entered on July 31, 2003, in the action entitled Kathi Cooper, Beth Harrington, and Matthew Hillesheim, Individually and on Behalf of All Those Similarly Situated vs. IBM Personal Pension Plan and IBM Corporation (Civil No. 99-829-GPM).
To learn more about what was said on the House Floor regarding the amendment, continue reading . . .
AMENDMENT OFFERED BY MR. SANDERS
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment offered by Mr. Sanders:
At the end of the bill, insert after the last section (preceding the short title) the following new section:
SEC. 742. None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be used to assist in overturning the judicial ruling contained in the Memorandum and Order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois entered on July 31, 2003, in the action entitled Kathi Cooper, Beth Harrington, and Matthew Hillesheim, Individually and on Behalf of All Those Similarly Situated vs. IBM Personal Pension Plan and IBM Corporation (Civil No. 99-829-GPM).
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The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of September 4, 2003, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and a Member opposed each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, this tripartisan amendment is cosponsored by the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) who is the ranking member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht). This amendment also has the strong support of the AARP, the largest senior citizen group in this country representing over 35 million Americans, it has the support of the Pension Right Centers, and the IBM Employees Benefit Action Coalition.
This amendment is simple and straightforward. Five weeks ago, the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Illinois ruled that IBM?s cash balance pension conversion violates Federal age discrimination law. The conversion, Judge Murphy found, violated the age discrimination provisions of ERISA because it discriminates against older workers.
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This court decision confirms what millions of American workers have been saying for years and what hundreds of Members of Congress have also gone on record as stating. Conversions to cash balance pension plans discriminate against older workers, are illegal and must not be allowed to happen. This amendment would simply prevent the Federal Government from using any funding to assist in overturning the Federal district court ruling. That is what this amendment does.
By passing this amendment, we would not only be upholding the law, which is the least we can do, but we will also be standing with millions of workers who have lost, and are in danger of losing, 20, 30, 40, 50 percent of the pensions that they have been promised by their employers.
Mr. Chairman, why did Judge Murphy rule against the company and decide in favor of IBM employees? Let me just read a brief excerpt of what he wrote:
?In 1999, IBM opted for a ?cash balance formula.? The plan?s actuaries projected that this would produce annual savings of almost $500 million by 2009. These savings would result from reductions of up to 47 percent in future benefits that would be earned by older IBM employees. The 1999 cash balance formula violates the literal terms of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, that is, ERISA. IBM?s own age discrimination analysis illustrates the problem.? That is from Judge Murphy.
Mr. Chairman, I became involved in this issue several years ago when many hundreds of IBM employees in Vermont contacted my office and told me that the pensions they had been promised by the company had been cut by 30 to 50 percent. Imagine that. Workers staying at a company through good times and bad times, providing loyalty to their employers, and then one day the company sends out a message which says, in so many words, thank you for your years of dedicated service, but forget about the promises that we made to you regarding the retirement that you and your family were anticipating. Thank you very much, but we?ve changed our minds, we?ve pulled the rug out from underneath you, we?re cutting your pensions by up to 50 percent.
Yes, IBM had enough money to pay out a $260 million compensation package to former CEO Lou Gerstner, $260 million to one man, but they just could not keep their word to their long-term, dedicated employees. And, of course, it is not just IBM that we are talking about today. It is hundreds of companies that have done exactly the same thing. It is companies that have broken the law, discriminated against older American workers and slashed the pensions that those workers were promised.
Mr. Chairman, it is no secret that the middle class in this country is hurting. Americans are working longer hours for lower wages. Their health benefits are being cut. Corporate America has thrown millions of American workers out on the street as they move our manufacturing sector to China, to Mexico and anyplace that they can find where they hire people for pennies an hour. Meanwhile, in many instances, the CEOs of these very same companies make out like bandits.
Mr. Chairman, a segment of corporate America have destroyed American jobs, destroyed health care benefits and now they want to destroy the pension benefits that were promised to their workers. We must not allow that to happen. Even corporate America, even major campaign contributors, even folks who can spend huge sums of money by placing full-page ads in the New York Times and elsewhere, even those people have got to obey the law. That is what this amendment is about. It is about obeying the law and not engaging in actions that violate Federal age discrimination statutes. In our country, we have come a long way by ending discrimination based on race, gender and disabilities. And today we have got to make it crystal clear that we will not allow discrimination against older American workers. We will not allow the Treasury Department to use taxpayer dollars to support age discrimination.
Mr. Chairman, let us not forget that companies with defined benefit pension plans receive $89 billion a year in tax breaks to set up pension plans for their workers. Out of all of the tax breaks that companies in America receive, the tax break for pension plans is far and away the most generous. Congress and the Federal Government should not be providing taxpayer dollars for companies to commit age discrimination against its workers.
Mr. Chairman, it is very important for the House to support this amendment today. It is important, Mr. Chairman, because despite the fact that cash balance conversions have been found to be illegal in the courts, the Treasury Department is still pushing proposed regulations that, if enacted, would give the green light to these very same cash balance pension plans that the Federal court has ruled are illegal. Clearly, the Treasury Department is intent on pushing these illegal conversions by all means at its disposal, and we must not allow that to happen.
Mr. Chairman, just last year, over 300 Members of the House voted to require the Treasury Department to protect older workers in cash balance pension conversions. I thank all of them for their support for older American workers. In addition, over 200 Members of Congress recently wrote a letter to urge President Bush to withdraw the proposed cash balance regulations that are at issue here. Today we have the opportunity to once again show our support for American workers and oppose a plan which is unfair, immoral and illegal. I urge strong support for this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, knowing no other Member to do so, I will claim the time in opposition, although I do not intend to speak on the amendment myself, but I will claim it for the purpose of yielding to any other Members that may wish to do so.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Sessions). Is the gentleman seeking time in opposition?
Mr. ISTOOK. I claim the time in opposition.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The gentleman reserves the balance of his time.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Let me just tell my colleagues how I came into this issue in the State of Vermont. I came into this issue when, several years ago, my phone lines bounced off the hook because large numbers of workers at the Vermont IBM plant in Essex Junction, Vermont, suddenly learned for the first time that the pensions that had been promised to them were going to be cut substantially and in some cases by up to 50 percent.
I became involved with these workers who stood up and said to the company, you made us a promise and when times were bad, we stayed with you, we didn?t go someplace else. One of the reasons that we stayed with you is because you had promised us a certain pension that we were basing our family retirement on. That is the promise that had been made. What these workers did is stood up, talked to their fellow IBM workers all over America and they fought back and they won some partial benefits as IBM made some rescissions in what they did, but they continued the fight. What they have said, and workers all over America have said, is we cannot discriminate against workers simply because they are old and move to cash balance.
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Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to thank him so much for his battle on behalf of American working families and retirees for pension protection and safety that he has led in this Congress now for a number of years.
Mr. Chairman, we are here again because of the relentless effort of this administration to empower corporations to cut the pensions of older workers in this country. If this amendment does not pass, the Treasury Department will go forward and provide a ruling that will make it safe for corporations to cut the pensions, the defined pension plans of older workers. Hundreds of corporations already have filed notice that they want to do this, they are simply waiting for the Treasury Department to make the ruling. We were here once before, and the Congress made a determination that this was unfair, it was inequitable, it was mean-spirited and it was damaging the economics of retirees and their ability to provide for their retirement.
The last time the gentleman led this effort, the General Accounting Office came forward and studied the impact of that effort and found that, in fact, many of these pensioners risked losing half of their pension. So the situation today is much the same as when the gentleman from Vermont first sounded the alarm a couple of years ago. But what has changed is, in fact, we now have a court opinion from the Federal District Court in the Southern District of Illinois that ruled, in fact, that IBM had violated the age discrimination protections when it changed its pension plan to accept a cash balance plan. What they did there was they ruled against older workers. They were going to deny older workers the pension benefits that they were entitled to, and they were going to get far less than younger workers were going to get, and that is age discrimination, because that is what they are doing. They are discriminating against older workers, 50, 55 years old, who have 15, 20 years at a company. Now, all of a sudden, they are going to find out that their pension plans have been cut in half.
What does that mean? That means that those people who have worked hard, made their plans for retirement, tried to develop their retirement nest egg so they could have a standard of living to carry them through their retirement years. All that is now threatened, and, essentially, it is gone. Because where does an older worker go to get back that pension benefit when they are 50, 55 years old with that company? They cannot do that. They cannot do that. That is the unfairness of this. That is why AARP, the American Association of Retired Persons, supports our amendment. That is why the Pension Rights Center supports the Sanders-Miller amendment. That is why they support this effort to bring equity to this effort.
What are we trying to say? Let the worker make a choice. Let the worker choose which benefit would help them the most. Companies under our legislation would still be allowed to convert to cash balances, but what they would not be allowed to do is to harm older workers and their families in the effort to do that. That is a significant amount of money to these workers. We have heard from workers all over the country who have e-mailed our office because they have heard that their company is thinking about this. We have heard from people in the financial industry, in the airline industry that have been through this, the telecommunications industry, industrial companies from all over the country who are now being made aware of the fact that they may lose their pensions.
Mr. Chairman, American families are reeling in this economic downturn. They are reeling from long-term unemployment, from rising health care premiums, from steep declines in their savings and the 401(k) investments that were lost in the bursting of the stock market bubble. These people are scrambling to keep their health care benefits, to keep their pension benefits and to keep their jobs. This Congress should not now come along and tell them that we are going to put their pensions at risk. We know that Americans, the baby boomers, people my age and others, who are thinking about retirement over the next 10 or 15 years are now starting to focus on whether or not they will be able to do that. The pension plans that the administration has in order, that the Treasury Department is trying to put in place, put all that at risk.
I would urge my colleagues, as they have in the past on a bipartisan basis, to support the Sanders-Miller-Emanuel-Gutknecht amendment to make sure that, in fact, those pension plans are not put at risk and those families are not put in that economic difficulty.
Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Chairman, I certainly appreciate the great passion, and it is passion that is well-placed, when we talk about the issue of pension plans for workers and trying to make sure that there is stability and some surety in those plans.
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So I appreciate that, and I realize that this is an issue that is being hotly contested in court.
Now, I do not know enough about the intricacies of the argument to know whether I agree or disagree that the judge has properly followed the law or not. I do know, however, that it is really going to be questionable whether this amendment will accomplish the intended objective.
We have seen several amendments on this bill like that, Mr. Chairman, where people offer an amendment and they tell everybody this will be the effect of my amendment. But that does not make it so.
If you look at the text of the amendment actually offered, it says, and here we are talking about the Transportation and Treasury appropriation bill: ?None of the funds appropriated by this act may be used to assist in overturning the judicial ruling contained,? and then it recites this court order that was issued out of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois in this particular case regarding the pension plan of IBM.
Now, when the amendment says you cannot use funds from the Transportation-Treasury appropriation bill to assist in overturning the judicial ruling, what does that mean? Because, you see, Mr. Chairman, it is the Department of Justice that is involved in representing the government in this litigation.
The funds that are used to potentially file an appeal of this ruling are the funds of IBM, and they are the funds of the Justice Department. It is not the Treasury Department directly that is involved in this, although obviously anything that has to do with pension plans and tax rulings has implications for the Treasury Department.
But this amendment is not going to control what happens in that case. I realize it presents an opportunity for different Members to stand up and say what their position is about that particular ruling about pension plans, but I do not think this amendment is going to bring about the result that people desire.
This amendment does not control what the appellate court may or may not do with the order issued in this case. That is beyond us. We are not here to dictate to a court that this is what you must find. We are here to determine what the law is. The courts interpret the laws. If they do not do a good job, sometimes we will change the laws or do something related to that court.
But this bill is not ultimately going to control the disposition of that lawsuit. It ultimately will not control whether the underlying law is going to be changed or not. As the Committee on Appropriations, we do not make the tax laws. We do not make the pension laws. We have other committees in this Congress, the Committee on Ways and Means, the Committee on Education and the Workforce, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, have roles in part of this. But it is not going to be decided in this bill.
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So I think it is important for Members to understand that whether this amendment is adopted or not adopted is not going to control what the underlying pension law of the United States is. It is consuming time for the House to take up the debate, but we will take it as Members want to. There may be other Members who want to come down to the floor and talk about the amendment, to oppose it, just as we have some Members that have come to the floor to speak in favor of it. But I would not want anyone to think that we are actually deciding what will be the pension laws or the outcome of that particular litigation when we vote on what will happen with this amendment.
Mr. Chairman, having said that by way of explanation, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3? minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel), who has played a very active role in this issue.
Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Chairman, just over a month ago, the Federal court ruled that IBM violated Federal anti-age discrimination laws when it converted from its traditional pension plan to a cash balance plan in the 1990s. As a result, over 130,000 of IBM?s longest-serving workers, including many in my home State of Illinois, moved one step closer to receiving the retirement benefits they rightfully earned. Despite the court?s decision, this administration is pushing regulations allowing companies to switch to cash balance.
Let us be honest: cash balance plans can work. We can create a win-win situation here just along the model that the Secretary of Treasury did at CSX, where you grandfather in older workers. We do not need to create a win-lose situation that only benefits employers and harms employees. There is a way to create a win-win situation that reflects the commitment of long-serving workers and older workers who are nearing retirement, and also gives younger workers a plan like a cash balance retirement plan that is a hybrid between both the defined benefit and the defined contribution plans.
When Secretary Snow was at his confirmation, he talked about what they had done at CSX when he was CEO and chairman. We always around here laud the private sector as a model. Well, I present to you a model, what CSX did for its own employees. It created a win-win situation for the company and for the individuals there, whether they were 58 and near retirement, or 38 and started as new workers. That should be the way we approach this situation.
I am a proud original cosponsor of this legislation. I think it reflects our values of rewarding work, loyalty, and taking responsibility. Thousands of companies are awaiting this decision.
I, along with the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), my colleagues, went to testify when there were hearings for this rule change.
It would be wrong to pull the carpet from underneath employees who are nearing retirement, relying on that retirement, planning on that retirement. As we say in our own legislation, if this is good enough for the private sector, let us adopt it here in Congress. Let us have a cash balance plan.
We all know the study that was done. It would affect older-serving Members who have years of service here who have relied open that retirement plan. If it is good enough for people in the private sector who are older workers, should we try it here in Congress? The answer resoundingly would be ?no.?
But, again, we are not going to debate today the principles underneath this bill. What we are going to say is while this decision is moving through the court, the funds through this appropriation process cannot be used to go around the court and implement this plan.
Yes, later on we will debate a pension plan and reform the system. We have the right values in this legislation. I believe it is correct to withhold the funds to ensure Treasury does not go around the court and have this decision work its way so we do not in any way send a signal to other employers to pull the rug out from underneath their employees. Let the court decision go its way. Do not allow them to fund this process and go around the court ruling.
Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), who has been a very active leader on this issue.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the gentleman from Vermont for yielding me time.
Mr. Chairman, it has been my privilege since I have been in public life to represent thousands of IBM employees in Rochester, Minnesota. In fact, approximately 6,000. I do not know how much of the story has been told, but this is a serious subject.
Now, I come at this not only as a representative of over 6,000 IBMers, but I come at this as a former member of the Legislative Commission on Pensions and Retirement. So I am not saying I am an expert on pension policy, but this is something I probably know a little more about than the average Member of Congress.
As the gentleman from Illinois just said, the concept of these cash balance plans or defined contribution plans, modified defined contribution plans, is not necessarily a bad idea. For many younger employees who are going to change careers and jobs throughout their careers, this probably makes some sense. But the bottom line for older workers, workers who have been with a company for perhaps 20 years, this is a shameless attempt to try and steal pension money. Part of the reason that IBM lost that lawsuit in southern Illinois is because the facts did not support their position.
I want to talk a little bit about a different dimension to this, because I do also agree with the gentleman from Illinois; we can craft a plan that is a win-win situation, that would allow companies to convert their pension plans, with one caveat: that you give vested employees a choice.
Let me just read from the dictionary the definition of the term ?vested.? The definition is ?settled, fixed or absolute; being without contingency, as in a vested right.?
The way you do this, Mr. Chairman, is you literally say to those employees who have been vested that you get a choice. The companies can make a conversion, if they want, for any new hires. They can even make a conversion for those employees who have not vested. But at the least, we ought to agree with this amendment that the Federal Government and its resources should not be used to appeal this particular case. This is a very important case.
Let me just talk to the Republicans for a minute. Understand, I am not sure that Republicans understand what is at stake here and who really is involved. We are not just talking about 6,000 IBMers; we are talking about literally hundreds of thousands of other people, most of them who are 45 years of age or older, who have been with a company for a very long time, many of them what we would call professional people, college-educated, technically trained people. Let me be very blunt: 75 percent of them vote Republican. They understand this issue, if it has happened to them or if they are afraid that it will happen to them.
In fact, go back to the issue of vested. TIAA-KREFF, when they put out a questionnaire or they put out some questions and answers when people sign up for their various pension plans, let me read Question 7 and the answer. I do not have to read the answer.
The question is, ?When do my plan contributions become vested?? And then in parentheses it says ?i.e., owned by me.?
Now, what 6,000 IBMers found out, I should say probably 5,000 of them at least who were vested, what they found out is there is no legal definition of the word ?vested.?
They came into work one day and they had calculators. As part of their computer tool kit on their computers, they had pension calculators which would literally calculate for them how much their pension would be worth if they stayed with the company until they retired at age 65 or 66, whatever the age was. They could do their little calculation of how much their pension was worth.
All of a sudden they came in one day and IBM changed the pension plan. For a few days IBM made a huge mistake. They left the calculators on the employees? computer screens. They could very quickly do the calculations in terms of how much the old pension plan was worth to them and then how much the new pension plan was worth to them.
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They did not have to be computer experts to begin to figure out that all of a sudden they had lost, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars? worth of pension benefits that they thought were vested.
Mr. Chairman, we should not mess with this. I agree with the chairman from Oklahoma. I do not think the Congress should be messing with this. I do not think the administration should be messing with this. I think this should be left to the courts.
He said, well, this is not pension law. But, understand, and I hope the gentleman from Oklahoma is paying attention here, because pension law is set in several different ways. First of all, it is what is in statute. It is also what is in rule. That is what we are concerned about.
The other thing we are concerned about that is really at issue today is in terms of precedent in the courts. In some respects, this administration is taking a wrong turn by getting involved in this issue. This is an explosive political issue. If you do not believe it, I would ask you to come to my hometown and have a town hall meeting, or have a committee meeting, if you want to hear from 6,000 IBMers.
This is a good amendment. This is the right thing to do. It ought to be included in this bill.
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Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Houghton).
Mr. HOUGHTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. Chairman, I would say to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), wherever he is, I am going to suggest a vote against his amendment. I have been around business many years, and I have been in and out of pension plans in many different corporations, and this is a dangerous amendment. I am not going to talk a long time on this thing; I just have to tell my colleagues how I feel.
Also, I am on the Committee on Ways and Means, and I would like to feel that we would have an opportunity to understand this and look at it. There has been no notice on this thing whatsoever.
But the bottom line is this: the Cooper ruling threatens to drive employers out of the pension system. Pension plans nationwide will be burdened with huge additional liabilities, leaving workers worse off. Is that what we want?
As a result of the Cooper decision, we understand the voluntary pension system itself would be in danger. Is this the protection workers need? I do not think so.
Frankly, I would urge people to vote against the Sanders amendment. It is not going to help the people I know, the people I have worked with, particularly the senior employees of various corporations who are so dependent upon our defined benefit plan.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht).
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
This is an ad, I say to my colleagues, that ran in today?s New York Times and it ran in some other newspapers I think here on Capitol Hill as well. It says, ?Don?t destroy America?s pension system. Vote no on the Sanders amendment.? It says, the Sanders amendment to the Treasury Appropriation bill threatens to outlaw vast numbers of pension plans.? Well, that is just outrageous. That is simply not true. We do not outlaw any pension plans.
It goes on to say, ?Prevent pension plans from protecting employees? pensions against inflation while they wait to receive their benefits.? That is not true. The Sanders amendment does not do that.
All this amendment does, I say to my colleagues, is it says the Federal Government, the Federal taxpayers should not join in this lawsuit against workers. I mean, these workers literally have had pension benefits stolen from them and we are saying, at least the administration should be kept from joining sides with the company. This is the most outrageous ad since the prescription drug ads that they were running a few weeks ago.
Now, the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) and I agree on almost nothing, but twice a year we agree on two things. One is the prescription drug prices and the other is pension policy.
This is a good amendment. It ought to be included in this bill. It is outrageous for the administration to join sides with companies that are trying to steal from pensions.
I say to my colleagues, we have to understand, pensions are in trust. We had this when I was on the pension commission back in Minnesota. One year there was a firefighter from Winona who embezzled something like $200,000 from the Winona Firefighters Pension Fund. And both sides came in and said, it is not my money. It is not my money. The money that was embezzled belonged to the city, or it was not our money that was embezzled. And then, when the pension fund started to get better rates of return and they were making more money than they needed, then the groups were coming in and saying, wait a second. That is our money.
The fact of the matter is pension money does not belong to the company and it does not belong to the employees. It is in trust. And when they make these conversions, the real purpose is to take that money, in effect, out of the trust and put it on to the bottom line of the companies.
This is a good idea. This amendment should be added to this bill.
Mr. BACA. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Sanders Amendment.
This amendment is simple and straightforward. It would simply prevent the Federal Government from using any funding to assist in overturning the federal district court ruling that declared IBM?s cash balance pension conversion to be in violation of the pension age discrimination laws that are on the books.
This amendment would protect millions of American workers throughout the country who have been negatively impacted by illegal age discriminatory cash balance pension conversions.
This amendment has the strong support of the AARP, the largest senior citizen group in this country representing over 35 million Americans, the Pension Rights Center and the IBM Employees? Benefits Action Coalition.
A federal district court in Illinois has already ruled this practice as illegal. In the case of IBM, 130,000 employees have seen their pensions slashed as a result of IBM?s cash balance scheme. The message was clear. These cash balance plans?which slash the pension benefits of older workers by as much as 50%?are illegal.
Despite this court ruling, it appears that the Treasury Department is still moving ahead with proposed regulations that would give the green light to the very cash balance pension plans that the federal court ruled are illegal. This is wrong.
Just last year, over 300 Members of the House voted to require the Treasury Department to protect older workers in cash balance pension conversions, and over 200 Members of Congress recently wrote a letter to urge President Bush to withdraw the proposed cash balance regulations that are at issue here. Congressional intent is clear?these conversions hurt our nation?s pensioners and this practice must stop.
But, there are some in Congress who may believe that cash balance plans are good for American workers. Well, according to a CRS report the Speaker of the House, the distinguished Majority Leader and others would see their pensions slashed by as much as 69% under a cash balance plan.
We do not tolerate discrimination against workers based on race, based on gender and based on other criteria, and we must not tolerate discrimination based on age.
I urge my colleagues to support the Sanders Amendment.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mr. Terry). The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders).
The question was taken; and the Chairman announced that the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders) will be postponed.