Message From Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa

America and the Teamsters Union face a jobs crisis. What many people are not aware of is that the jobs crisis is connected to the strains placed on pension funds by the Wall Street financial collapse.

So to create jobs, we also must protect pensions.

Our nation's retirement plans need help. The financial crisis caused billions of dollars in losses in pension plans. A crisis in retirement security is threatening retirees, older workers and every person who depends on a wage or a wage-earner to survive. We must ensure the solvency of these plans to protect the jobs and security of our workers, Teamster members and retirees.

Many Teamsters are in multi-employer plans. The plans and our employers who contribute to these plans are facing unreasonable financial pressures that threaten the retirement security of tens of thousands of workers.

The IBT has devoted thousands of hours and held dozens of meetings with the White House and Congress to solve the problems faced by multi-employer plans.

We are now launching a campaign to seek pension relief from Congress. We urgently need help from our Local Unions and our Joint Councils to help in our lobbying campaign.

A Local Union Action Kit will be made available to you both by mail and on this Web page in the coming weeks. I know I can count on my brothers and sisters to engage wholeheartedly in this effort.

We will update you on further developments here, so please stay tuned.