Articles Discussing Multi-Employer Pension Plans.

Seventh Circuit Places Limits on Employers’ Withdrawal Liability from Certain Multiemployer Plans

On April 24, 2025, the Seventh Circuit upheld a Northern District of Illinois decision requiring a multiemployer pension plan to exclude the employers’ post-2014 rehabilitation plan contribution rate increases from the employers’ withdrawal liability calculation. 

Withdrawal Liability and Funding

In July, the Third Circuit upheld a District of New Jersey decision to throw out a withdrawal liability assessment, finding the multiemployer pension fund was barred from pursuing its claim because the fund unreasonably delayed notification of a withdrawal liability assessment for 12 years.

Withdrawal Liability Assessments Under ERISA

The Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1974 (MPPAA) was enacted purposefully by Congress to seize moneys from contributing employers to fund multiemployer defined benefit pension funds regardless of the employers’ culpability for the underfunding of those plans. However, the construction industry is one of a few industries in which the impact of withdrawal liability upon employers has been eliminated.

On October 14, 2022, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the federal agency that insures and regulates private-sector defined benefit pension plans under Title IV of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), published a proposed rule governing employer withdrawal liability.

Withdrawal liability is a statutory obligation under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) that any unionized employer may have to confront. Exemptions from liability include one applicable to construction industry employers.

Under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), as amended by the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA), a company incurs withdrawal liability when it withdraws from a multiemployer pension plan.

Turning an “American Dream Project” into a nightmare for a New Jersey contractor, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has held that, under ERISA’s multiemployer pension plan provisions (the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1974 or MPPAA), a MPPAA employer includes any entity that is obligated to contribute to a plan as either a direct employer or in the interest of one.

The Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA), the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s (ERISA) progeny, can create significant unexpected liabilities for companies that have agreed to collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) requiring participation in and contributions to multiemployer-defined benefit pension funds (often referred to as Taft-Hartley Funds). However, a special exemption is available to employers in the construction industry.

We had pondered when this day would come. The doomsday scenario that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) would become insolvent in five to six years is now old history. (The new estimated time of PBGC insolvency is the mid-2040s.) Plan participants, the plans, employers, unions, and the PBGC had

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 includes a modified version of the Butch Lewis Act, referred to as the Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act of 2021 (EPPRA), which restores to financial health more than 100 failing multiemployer pension plans. However, the measure falls well short of any meaningful long-term funding reform.

Without congressional intervention, about 100 multiemployer pension plans are expected to become insolvent in the next 20 years, and some much sooner.  In other words, for these pension plans, their liabilities to retired employees and current employees with vested benefits far outweigh their assets and incoming contributions.

House Education and Labor Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) recently introduced legislation that seeks to provide aid to multiemployer pension plans (MEPs) facing insolvency. Entitled the Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act (EPPRA), the bill would fund this directly from the U.S. Treasury.

House Education and Labor Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) recently introduced legislation that seeks to rescue multiemployer pension plans (MEPs) facing insolvency. Entitled the Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act (EPPRA), the bill would fund this rescue directly from the U.S. Treasury.

On January 8, 2021, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) issued its final rule modifying the calculation of withdrawal liability by multiemployer pension plans.  This final rule amends the agency’s regulations on allocating unfunded vested benefits to withdrawing employers (29 C.F.R. § 4211) and notice, collection, and redetermination of

Approximately a quarter of the workforce covered by a traditional pension plan is in a multiemployer plan, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many manufacturers that participate in such plans are unaware their largest contingent liability may stem from their allocable share of unfunded vested benefits, or withdrawal liability.