Posts tagged Education and the Workforce Committee
Foxx, Good Bring DOL Chief Lawyer into Dead Teamsters Pension Overpayment Investigation
April 4, 2024 // “The Committee recognizes that, as Solicitor of Labor, you are the principal counsel to Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su, who also serves as the acting chair of PBGC’s Board of Directors… The Committee is interested in what advice and legal interpretations you and SOL have provided to PBGC regarding its legal authority to recapture these overpayments from both before and after DOL’s publication of its statement.” The letter continues: “In addition, the Committee understands that SOL could play a role in how PBGC responds to inquiries from Congress and the public. Unfortunately, despite multiple inquiries, PBGC’s responses have been unacceptably incomplete. PBGC’s failure to provide full and forthright information is obstructing the Committee’s ability to consider H.R. 7135, the Ghost Handouts and Overpayments Stop Today Act (GHOST Act), or similar legislation to ensure PBGC meets its obligation to reclaim any overpayment it made in the SFA program.”
Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Cassidy Introduce Bill Recouping Pension Bailout Sent for Dead People, Increasing Oversight of Pension System
January 31, 2024 // In November, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation’s (PBGC) Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a report disclosing that the PBGC overpaid the Central States fund by $127 million after the plan included at least 3,479 dead participants in its bailout request. According to the PBGC OIG, the PBGC’s review process did not require cross-checking the plan participant list with the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Full Death Master File (Full DMF), despite this practice being recommended as a standard procedure by the OIG. As far back as 2018, the OIG instructed PBGC that using the Full DMF is not only crucial, but essential, to prevent overpayments of annuities to people who are already dead. Under questioning from Sen. Cassidy, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who represents nearly 350,000 Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund (Central States Pension Fund) retiree participants, stated that the fund should return $127 million in taxpayer dollars that were wrongfully paid to it. However, the PBGC has indicated it does not intend to recoup this money, even though it has the legal authority to claw back wrongfully obtained funds. Further, the Central States Pension Fund has not returned the overpayment of taxpayer funds and is treating them as a fund asset. We still do not know how much the PBGC has overpaid for ghost annuities in total to all multiemployer pension plans.
Foxx: The NLRB and Big Labor Are Unabashed Bedfellows
June 14, 2023 //
House attempt to override Biden comes up short Labor Department regulation regarding ESG investments will stand
March 24, 2023 // "Thanks to Democrats, workers can be placed into ESG investment vehicles by default, and if a fiduciary finds that two investments are equal, the fiduciary is allowed to use collateral ESG factors to break the tie, without justifying or documenting that decision,” Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, said during the floor debate on the veto message.
Foxx to NLRB: Proposed Rule Puts Unions Before Employees
February 3, 2023 // “The NLRA is intended to protect the right of workers to organize or refrain from doing so in conditions free of interference, not to permit an employer to anoint a union as the employee representative. History and experience have shown that the secret ballot election is the most reliable method of assessing whether a majority of employees support union representation, while the card check process is notorious for its lack of privacy and invites intimidation and coercion of workers.”