The 2015 Pension 40: Sean McGarvey

No. 10 Sean McGarvey, President / North American Building Trades Unions

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< The 2015 Pension 40: The Long Climb

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10
Sean McGarvey
President /
North American Building Trades Unions
Last year: Not ranked

As president of the North American Building Trades Unions, with 13 unions representing more than 2 million workers in the U.S. and Canada, and chairman of the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP), Sean McGarvey, 53, knows the importance of protecting union workers’ retirement savings. He was instrumental to the passage of the Kline-Miller Multiemployer Pension Reform Act of 2014, which allows severely underfunded Taft-Hartley plans to restructure, even if it means retirees and workers take a hit to their pensions. “We all have wants, wishes and desires to save those plans without any pain,” McGarvey says. “Unfortunately, in the economy we live in and the state of our politics, that just isn’t possible. So the question is, How do we do this?” The International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ Central States pension plan quickly filed for restructuring after the bill passed, and McGarvey says he knows of at least four others ready to follow. “Communication is key,” says McGarvey, whose father is among the retirees likely to be affected by benefit changes under the act. For McGarvey the work continues. He’s still hoping to implement a third key element of the legislation before the end of the 2016 session that would offer a new structure for multiemployer plans. McGarvey started working as an apprentice glazer in Philadelphia in 1981, was elected his local’s business representative in 1994, then ascended the union ranks. He’s excited by the Department of Labor’s recent decision to roll back its 2008 guidance on so-called economically targeted investments; he and other labor leaders believe this will help pension plans make financially sound investment decisions while creating jobs for workers. “We feel it’s time industry invested in itself and its members invested in themselves,” he says.


The 2015 Pension 40

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1. Bruce Rauner
Illinois

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2. John & Laura Arnold
Laura and John Arnold Foundation

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3. Chris Christie
New Jersey

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4. Randi Weingarten
AmericanFederation of Teachers

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5. Phyllis Borzi
U.S. Department of Labor

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6. Kevin de León
California

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7. Alejandro García Padilla
Commonwealth ofPuerto Rico

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8. Laurence Fink
BlackRock

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9. Rahm Emanuel
Chicago

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10. Sean McGarvey
North AmericanBuilding Trades Unions

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11. John Kline
Minnesota

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12. J. Mark Iwry
U.S. TreasuryDepartment

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13. Damon Silvers
AFL-CIO

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14. Jeffrey Immelt
General Electric Co.

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15. Joshua Gotbaum
Brookings Institution

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16. Robin Diamonte
United Technologies Corp.

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17. Mark Mullet
Washington

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18. Terry O’Sullivan
Laborers’ International Union of North America

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19. Raymond Dalio
Bridgewater Associates

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20. Ted Wheeler
Oregon

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21. Thomas Nyhan
Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund

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22. Karen Ferguson & Karen Friedman
Pensions Rights Center

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23. Randy DeFrehn
National Coordinating Committee forMultiemployer Plans

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24. Robert O’Keef
Motorola Solutions

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25. Caitlin Long
Morgan Stanley

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26. Kenneth Feinberg
The Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg

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27. Orrin Hatch
Utah

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28. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend
Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University

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29. Ian Lanoff
Groom Law Group

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30. Joshua Rauh
Stanford Graduate School of Business

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31. Ted Eliopoulos
California Public Employees’ Retirement System

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32. Edward (Ted) Siedle
Benchmark Financial Services

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33. Teresa Ghilarducci
New School for Social Research

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34. Denise Nappier
Connecticut

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35. W. Thomas Reeder Jr.
Pension BenefitGuaranty Corp.

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36. Hank Kim
National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems

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37. Paul Singer
Elliott Management Corp.

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38. Bailey Childers
National PublicPension Coalition

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39. Amy Kessler
Prudential Financial

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40. Judy Mares
U.S. Labor Department


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