1 min read

Season 4, Episode 44

Lewis: If you believe in something, fight for it

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Guest Name:

Rita Lewis

Guest Website:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/547 

Guest Social Media:

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Mentions:

Rita Lewis, the widow activist of the late Teamsters Local 100 President Butch Lewis, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast and told her story about the passage of the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021.

Rita Lewis appeared on AWF in honor of International Women’s Month.

She explained how her husband teamed up with Mike Walden to create the National United Committee to Protect Pensions (NUCPP), which lobbied Congress for multi-employer pension plan relief. Until the day he died of a stroke, Lewis traveled back and forth from his home in Cincinnati to Washington, D.C., to lobby politicians from both parties to save failing pension plans.

After his tragic passing, she felt compelled to pick up the torch and continue her late husband's work. Lewis spoke about the trials and tribulations she, Walden and Bill Lichtenwald, who at the time worked for the Central States Pension Fund faced for nearly six years as they lobbied Congress to save nearly-bankrupted pensions.

Eventually, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Walden worked together to craft the legislation, which they named after Butch Lewis, much to the surprise of his wife. Roughly eight years after Butch Lewis began to lobby Congress, President Joe Biden signed the Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021. The act not only saved multi-employer pension plans through 2051, but guaranteed pensioners would not see their benefits cut during this period. 

Listen to the entire episode to learn more about Rita Lewis and her fight for pension reform.


America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, American Alliance for Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North America, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, Survey and Ballot Systems, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

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