Union for Tops Markets workers to use $764 million in ARPA funding for pensions

Employees of Tops Markets are among the more than 19,000 workers of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local One that will receive a $764 million pension-fix payout from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

The ARPA funding benefits workers in Syracuse, Buffalo, the Southern Tier, Finger Lakes, and across upstate New York, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) announced Thursday.

Schumer said that this will ensure that UFCW Local One members and their families receive the benefits that they paid into their whole lives but lost “through no fault of their own.” The senator said with these pensions restored, UFCW members and their families can finally have the “financial security they deserve.”

Background

Citing the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), Schumer’s office explained that the UFCW Local One pension plan was projected to become insolvent and run out of money in 2026. Without the Special Financial Assistance (SFA) program, the UFCW Local One plan would have been required to reduce participants’ benefits to the PBGC guarantee levels upon plan insolvency, which is roughly 15 percent below the benefits payable under the terms of the plan.

Schumer went on to say that after the 2008 financial crash, many union workers in multiemployer pension plans were in danger of collapse. Multiemployer plans are created through agreements between employers and a union, with plans typically involving multiple employers in a single industry or related industries. Countless families and workers faced the prospect of losing out on retirement savings “through no fault of their own.”

Schumer’s office says he fought to include the Butch Lewis Act in the American Rescue Plan, securing pension solvency in “his very first major bill as majority leader.”

Before the American Rescue Plan, more than 200 multiemployer plans were on pace to become insolvent in the near term, risking benefits for millions of workers and their families. The law created the SFA program administered by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) to protect benefits for millions of workers, reverse “harsh” pension cuts, and put existing plans on a “path to solvency” through 2051, per Schumer’s office.