Trusnik serves as recording secretary for Local 1-243, and the president is Mark Minor, who works for Cleveland Hardware and Forging, one the oldest companies in Cleveland.
Minor's pension is solvent. At 57 years old, he is relieved by that. But he will travel to D.C. Thursday to urge action for those whose plans are threatened.
"This is money that these guys have earned, you know what I mean?" Minor says. "With my company, when I negotiate a contract, you either go for a raise in your paycheck or you go for a raise in your pension. You can't get them both at the same time. A lot of these guys went without raises in their contract in order to up the money in the pensions."
A pension, he says, is a pledge. "They should keep their promise. We kept our promise when it was time to do the work."
Keith Jenkins, president of USW Local 507 in Canton, North Carolina, a third-generation papermaker, will be at the Capitol on Thursday as well, speaking for retirees and 850 USW members who make paperboard products, including Starbucks cups, for Evergreen Packaging.
Although the company left the threatened multiemployer pension in 2014 for different retirement plans, about 500 USW members still working at the paper plant and several hundred retirees are owed pensions from the original plan. "A lot of people have a lot of time here who are depending on that," Jenkins says.
"We paid into this. We bargained so many cents per hour per employee to be paid into it. These workers earned it," says Jenkins, who is 57.
He knows what struck down the pension. So many paper mills have closed over the past decade that fewer and fewer workers are paying into the plan. Mills were hurt by the move to email and by massive imports of illegally subsidized paper from China. In addition, federal rules for how multiemployer pensions operate did not serve them well. Neither the workers nor the companies caused these problems. And Jenkins believes lawmakers must intervene.
"We understand why the fund is in trouble, but we would like to think that our leaders in D.C. could look at this from the standpoint of helping us out a little bit," Jenkins says. "When you are close to retirement age, and you have worked your whole life for that benefit, you might not be able to retire with dignity if that benefit is denied."
Like Minor and Jenkins, this won't be the first trip to D.C. for Trusnik. In addition to serving as recording secretary for the local, he is a shop steward and Rapid Response coordinator, which is a person who rallies fellow union members to support issues that will help working people.
He believes this work is part of what he originally thought was his calling, which was to be a police officer. He saw police officers as people who helped, who solved problems for community members. And that's what he sees himself doing now with his union activism. "When I got into Etched Metal and saw the opportunity to work with the union, I felt I could still help people in a different way. I saw it as an opportunity to help the little guy when they are treated unfairly."
That's why this millennial who started work on St. Patrick's Day, just as his great-grandfather Wilmer Younglas did, and who lives in Younglas' home, will join the fight for justice for pensioners in D.C. Thursday.
This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.
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