Bernie Sanders: “this issue affects the lives and well-being of millions of American workers, and I hope the Members would pay attention…”

“this issue affects the lives and well-being of millions of American workers, and I hope the Members would pay attention to this debate. This motion to recommit is cosponsored by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey), the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), so it has a tripartisan element. Mr. Speaker, in the last several years, major corporation after major corporation has cut back the pension benefits that they promised their workers. IBM, for example, which has a huge pension surplus, which pays its CEO $175 million over a 2-year period, said to its workers last year, yes, we made a promise to you, but we are going to renege on that promise and, in some cases, cut back the benefits that you expected by 30 or 40 or 50 percent. That is wrong, and we have to deal with it. Unfortunately, the underlying legislation here does not in any meaningful way deal with this issue. The proponents of the bill say, we do deal with it, we do deal with it. But what we are really talking about is that we deal with it through disclosure. I guess it is a good thing to know in advance if you are going to get the death penalty. It helps. But more importantly, it would help if this legislation did, as my amendment does, give workers a choice. If a company is going to convert from defined benefits to cash balance, workers should have a choice, should not be forced to accept major cutbacks in pensions that were promised to them.”