Late last month, a group purporting to represent 22,000 Teamsters retirees sued the federal government for approving a benefit reduction plan that reduced retiree benefits by 29%. Members would like the federal government to reimburse them the benefits they have been stripped of. These pension cuts went into effect last October.

In New Jersey, a different course of action is being proposed by a task force headed up by Steve Sweeney. Rather than cut retiree benefits, the task force is recommending that current and future members of these underfunded pension plans move over to some sort of contribution plan (such as a 401k). Not surprisingly, unions aren’t too keen on the idea.