Tens of thousands of musicians— pianists, trumpeters, celloists, saxophonists and others— who were fighting cuts to their pensions are reaping immediate gains from the newly enacted Butch Lewis Emergency Pension Plan Relief Act, which was passed as part of the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 aid package, known as the American Resc More...

It didn’t get a lot of fanfare, but tucked into the just-passed COVID relief bill is a new program that will make a life-changing difference for over a million current and future union retirees.

What started as a small group gathering in the spring of 2014 in Akron to find a way to save failing union pensions from drastic cuts helped start a national movement that eventually claimed victory in early March.

“When Don first got his letter saying his pension was going to be cut 52 percent, it was one of those moments like when President Kennedy was killed and 9/11,” said Dana Vargo, spouse of a retired Teamster. “You remember exactly where you were.”