Let me be clear that I'm not calling you a liar. But I believe that you have been misinformed. I know of no union or pension fund that has ever been given an exemption from the federal ERISA law allowing it to cut a retiree's pension. His having worker for North Penn, St Johnsbury and Red Star leads me to assume he worked up in the northeastern US which probably doesn't fall under the highly publicized and much aligned CSPF. But even if it were to be the case I say again no Teamster pension fund has ever missed a monthly retiree check let alone defaulted. And no Federal exemptions have been given to cut retiree pensions................
Now if you happen to be referring to an existing pension fund that is under a rehabilitation plan then adjustable benefits may have been eliminated by the individual plan's administrator. Such as future lump sum payoffs or and adjustable high low option. But no federal exemptions could even be given without congress rewriting the ERISA.
And just FYI USF paid Red Star's pension withdrawal liabilities so to that extent your father in law was whole and not a pension orphan in that regard. Also individual unions don't have any control over Teamster MEPFs. They are controlled by an equal number of trustee's from the unions and the participating companies and an independent fund administrator. So I strongly doubt that your claim that the union had cut his pension has any factual basis.
