He said that hundreds of hard-working union families were at risk of losing their pensions through no fault of their own – an amount he said was $45 million for 850 IBEW workers across the Hudson Valley and New York. “These are the Hudson Valley union electricians who repair machinery and toil in the warehouses that drive our economy forward,” Sen. Schumer said. “They worked hard, played by the rules, and paid into pension plans that were at risk of being drastically cut or even completely disappearing.”

Retirement security is a massive and unrecognized crisis that will impact every American, not just Union members, he explained. “Our lives should not be that we work until we are too sick or drop dead at work because we cannot afford to retire. Unlike the 401k retirement plans that routinely get wiped out by market shifts, defined benefit pension plans promise a guaranteed future.” He added that the hardworking people who relied on those guarantees “were nearly left destitute.”

Published: March 25, 2025.