A special congressional committee missed its Nov. 30 deadline for developing a plan to help troubled U.S. multiemployer pension plans. Panel leaders claimed to be making headway, but as the lame-duck session nears an end, construction officials say a solution probably will have to wait until next year and the new Congress.
Multiemployer plans are common in construction’s unionized sector. As of 2014, there were 759 such plans in the construction industry, or 53% of the total insured by the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC). Construction plans had nearly 3.9 million participants, 37.5% of the multiemployer total.