Terry o'sullivan has a problem. General president of the Laborers' International Union of North America, O'Sullivan thinks the half-million union members he represents at $35 billion LIUNA are headed for disaster. That's because as insured members of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., LIUNA's 100 multiem-ployer pension plans are paying into a mandatory program with a whopping $52.3 billion deficit. The PBGC, the federal insurance agency that provides modest replacement income for multiemployer pension participants whose defined benefit pensions have become insolvent, estimates that unless changes are made, it will run out of money by 2025. Last year, in an attempt to prop up the PBGC, Congress doubled annual premiums for the agency's 10.4 million multiemployer participants, from $13 per person to $26; it will probably keep hiking them for the foreseeable future. (The PBGC has no official comment on its plans.).
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