Like it or not, these are the real reasons most funds are in trouble today.
Central States’ active contributing employers are 20 percent what it was at its peak two decades ago. But that plan is contributing benefits to an ever-higher number of retirees.
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That’s because of structural labor changes in the trucking industry. Since deregulation in 1980, the trucking industry has lost more than 500 Teamster-covered carriers. Currently, about 95 percent of the overall trucking industry is non-unionized. In the truckload sector, it is virtually non-union.
For instance, there is only one active worker for every four retirees receiving benefits from the Central States plan, the Teamsters’ largest.
Pension funds depend on a stable or growing labor force for contributions. In LTL we have the opposite situation unfortunately.