Three representatives of GMRA, Angele Shaw, Richard Knoth, and I recently returned from the annual National Retiree Legislative Network (NRLN) Conference in Washington DC.

The NRLN leadership team met the first day to review and approve 2010 legislative initiatives. You can check out the entire legislative agenda by clicking here .  We have a considerable number of legislative issues to address in 2010, with "Bankruptcy Reform" and “Protection of Defined Benefits during Mergers and Acquisitions" at the top of the list.

The next day, representatives from the Department of Labor, the Senate Finance Committee and the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) joined the conference as speakers to review the status of legislative initiatives in their respective areas, and field questions and concerns from conference participants.

The following day we split into teams and spread out to meet with members of Congress and their staff. More than 40 NRLN members, representing 17 retiree associations, visited with 51 Senators, Representatives and their staff members on the Hill that day. We made our case at each stop, briefing them on the challenges we are facing as retirees and soliciting their support in pushing for legislative reform that will protect our retirement future.  Overall, there was a good basic understanding of the issues we raised.  We left packages of information detailing our concerns and our recommendations for new legislation that would address the issues.

The one thing that impressed me most as I interacted with retirees from other large companies, most of whom you would recognize, is the trend toward U.S. companies to use bankruptcy as a way to shed their legacy costs and obligations, leaving non-represented retirees with an inequitable share of the burden.  It has become a far too common and recurring story, and a cycle that must be broken.

In the interest of doing just that, we are happy to be able support the NRLN in developing White Papers on “Bankruptcy Reform" and “Protection of Defined Benefits during Mergers and Acquisitions,” as a first step toward getting new legislation passed.