Chris Withers, who fears losing his pension, is pictured at the Stiles and Hart Brick Co. in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, on September 11, 2019. Stiles and Hart is one of scores of small businesses in the United States struggling to prop up about 120 multi-employer plans classified as critical and declining. That means their liabilities dwarf their assets, and they’re projected to go broke within 20 years.
Credit: John Tlumack/The Boston Globe/Getty

Glen Heck spent 28 years sweating in a Campti, Louisiana, paper mill that he likes to say was “hotter than nine kinds of hell.”

But now, Heck’s sacrifice may have been for nothing because his multiemployer pension plan is one of about 150 nationwide set to go broke. If that happens, the 78-year-old Heck will have to find a cheaper, lower-quality health plan and keep the beef herd he’s itching to sell.

The Democratic-controlled House passed—with bipartisan support—a commonsense plan to save Heck’s pension and those of another 1.3 million workers, retirees and widows. But Republican leaders in the Senate refuse to consider it.

In the […]