§1001a Additional Congressional findings and declaration of policy

Summary

Congress finds that multiemployer pension plans are important to the national economy and affect commerce across state lines. Over the past three decades these plans helped expand private pension coverage. Millions of workers, retirees, and their families depend on them. When employers leave a plan, the remaining employers often must pay much more. That hurts the plan, the people it covers, and labor-management relations. In shrinking industries, employer departures happen more and make the problem worse. Congress wants to change how plan-end insurance works. It aims to replace the old system with one that protects benefits when a plan becomes insolvent, helps keep plans running, makes plans more financially sound, limits program costs, and creates a self-supporting benefit guarantee. The policy also supports interstate commerce and tries to remove barriers to keeping and growing multiemployer plans.