Butch Lewis Act after 5 years: How Unions Saved Pensions

Five years after the Butch Lewis Act became law, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Fourth District International Vice President Austin Keyser says the measure did more than rescue failing multiemployer pensions. It prevented a cascading collapse that could have undermined defined benefit retirement across unionized industries, restored cuts that retirees had already absorbed and reinforced the principle that a lifetime of skilled work should end with security, not uncertainty.

On today’s episode of the America’s Work Force Union Podcast, we looked at the impact of the Butch Lewis Act five years after it was enacted under President Joe Biden. Keyser discussed the situation that led to the need for the Butch Lewis Act and how it has saved the pensions of many union members.

• The law stabilized multiemployer pensions by preventing a pension backstop failure that could have spread losses across otherwise healthy plans.
• Keyser credits sustained, worker-centered legislative leadership and coordinated union pressure for breaking years of gridlock.
• The next phase, he argues, is to use the framework to strengthen defined benefit plans and reduce barriers for unions seeking to rebuild pension coverage.

Five years after Congress enacted the Butch Lewis Act, the debate over retirement security is no longer theoretical for many union households. It is personal, measurable and tied to whether retirees can pay bills without sacrificing the dignity they earned on the job.

On America’s Work Force Union Podcast, host Ed “Flash” Ferenc marked the anniversary by speaking with Austin Keyser, IBEW Fourth District International Vice President. Keyser’s district encompasses Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., placing him at the intersection of industrial transition, public policy and the building trades’ current growth.

Keyser framed the Butch Lewis Act as a rare instance in which policy moved fast enough to address the scale of a crisis that had been building for years. He said the law was not simply a fix for a handful of distressed plans; it was a firewall designed to stop a chain reaction that could have dragged down the broader multiemployer pension system.

Why multiemployer pensions reached a breaking point

Keyser traced the roots of the crisis to long-term shifts in industry and policy decisions that weakened collective bargaining structures in sectors that once supported large, stable pension contributions.

He pointed to the trucking industry as a clear example. As business models changed and more work shifted to smaller operators, the number of employers contributing to certain plans shrank. Workers who had paid in were left connected to plans that no longer had the same base of active employers. Keyser emphasized that this dynamic created what he described as “orphaned” obligations: retirees and vested workers still owed benefits while the contributing employers that once supported those benefits had disappeared.

The result, he said, was not limited to one union or one region. The pressure spread across multiemployer plans that were already trying to recover from earlier economic shocks. By the mid-2010s, he argued, many plans had not regained the footing they needed to stabilize long-term funding.

The PBGC backstop and the risk of a systemwide collapse

Keyser explained that the most misunderstood part of the story is the role of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the federal backstop that steps in when pension plans fail.

In his account, the PBGC’s multiemployer program was not positioned to absorb a wave of failures. If major plans had gone under, the backstop would have been forced to cover benefits at a reduced guarantee level. Keyser noted a deeper problem: the PBGC’s funding structure would effectively shift the burden onto other pension funds through premiums and related mechanisms.

That scenario, he warned, would have spread instability to plans that were still solvent. In other words, the crisis was not only about saving distressed plans. It was about preventing the backstop's failure and avoiding a downward spiral that could have undermined confidence in defined benefit pensions nationwide.

A long road from early warnings to legislative action

Ferenc said the issue had been visible for years. Keyser agreed and described a period when unions and allies repeatedly tried to move solutions through Congress, only to run into confusion, resistance and competing interests.

He argued that the complexity of multiemployer pensions made it easier for opponents to dismiss the problem or mischaracterize it as a narrow concern. At the same time, he suggested that some stakeholders benefited from a shift away from defined benefit pensions toward individual retirement accounts, where fees and financial products can generate profit.

Keyser credited then U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) for staying focused on the issue across multiple sessions of Congress. He said Brown treated the pension crisis as a downstream consequence of broader policy failures and refused to accept partial measures that would lock in benefit cuts.

The pressure campaign and the moment the politics shifted

Keyser described the final stretch as a high-stakes test of labor unity. As political control was expected to change, he said some lawmakers offered a compromise that would have acknowledged the decline of defined benefit pensions while providing limited relief.

Keyser said the prospect of losing everything created real fear among affected workers and retirees and even led some labor leaders to consider accepting a deal they did not like. Still, he argued that coordinated union advocacy, backed by a clear legislative champion, helped hold the line.

He highlighted collaboration among unions with major exposure to multiemployer plans and described a concerted effort to keep the issue alive through lobbying and mobilization. He also pointed to national labor leadership that helped maintain discipline when the temptation to settle for less was strongest.

According to Keyser, the breakthrough came when a new governing alignment created an opening to attach pension relief to a broader recovery package. He said Brown pressed the case that workers deserved the same urgency that policymakers have often shown when stabilizing major sectors of the economy.

What the Butch Lewis Act delivered for retirees and active members

Keyser cautioned that the impact of the Butch Lewis Act is difficult to capture in a single statistic because the law’s effect is tied to preventing a collapse that would have rippled across plans.

Still, he offered a concrete example: in Ohio alone, he said, roughly 10,000 people stood to be directly affected by the stabilization of multiemployer pensions.

Keyser also emphasized that the law did not only stop future cuts; it restored losses that had already been imposed on retirees in some plans. He described retirees who had been living with reduced checks for years, forced to stretch budgets and delay basic needs. Under the law’s framework, he said, many were made whole, including through retroactive relief that recognized what they had already lost.

A union pathway from poverty to stability and leadership

His own trajectory shapes Keyser’s perspective. He described growing up in southern Ohio, a region once anchored by unionized industrial work. As those jobs declined, he said, communities were left with fewer options and deeper poverty.

He credited the IBEW apprenticeship model with providing a route into the middle class at a time when opportunities were limited. Keyser also described how early responsibility on large projects pushed him into union stewardship and leadership roles. That experience, he said, taught him that strong union culture depends on members stepping up to enforce standards and to protect one another.

What comes next for defined benefit pensions

Keyser argued that the Butch Lewis Act created more than a one-time rescue. It established a workable policy instrument and a public mindset that retirement security is a legitimate responsibility of government, even though prior policy choices helped create the crisis.

Looking ahead, he said the next step should be strengthening defined benefit pensions and reducing the risk for unions that want to expand or restore them. He suggested that incentives and policy support could help stabilize pensions as a pillar of economic security, especially for workers whose jobs are physically demanding and whose retirement years should not be defined by fear.

At five years, Keyser’s message was not celebratory so much as instructive. When labor stays coordinated, and policy is built around the dignity of work, retirement security can be defended and rebuilt.

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