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The 2015 Pension 40: Sean McGarvey

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

By Tyler Davies

December 22, 2015

< The 2015 Pension 40: The Long Climb

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