Our colleague Allen B. Roberts recently wrote a client advisory entitled “Unions Swim Against the Tide as Pension Issues Surface for Negotiations and Organizing,” which appears on Epstein Becker Green’s website.

Following is an excerpt:

Contributions to multiemployer defined benefit pension plans have been a mainstay, legacy feature of union negotiations in many industries. But the fabric of such staples may be tearing apart as employers contemplate the potential of escalating contributions to amortize unfunded liabilities that increase costs but may have imperceptible value for their own employees. Increasingly, employers and their employees are questioning whether the promise of retirement security can be delivered cost effectively—or at all—by defined benefit pension plans maintained under union contracts.

With private sector union membership standing at 6.7 percent nationally in 2013 (4.6% in “Retail Trade”), major sectors of the economy and geographic areas are not affected significantly by either current unionization or successful organizing efforts.

Read the full article here.