By Doug Cunningham

The U.S. House is about to take up a pensions bill that the United Auto Workers says will outlaw early retirement benefits in plant closing and will freeze the pension benefits of hundreds of thousands of workers in well-funded plans by changing accounting rules. Alan Reuther is Legislative Director for the UAW.

[Alan Reuther 1] : "These proposals we think are being pushed by people who want to get rid of defined benefit pensions plans. And that's why they're pushing these counterproductive ideas."

Reuther says these provisions harming worker pensions are not in the Senate version of the pension bill. And he believes the public can get rid of them in the House version.

"We're asking people to call their members of Congress and to urge them to oppose this pension bill and to send a strong message that it's not right to be freezing the pensions of workers and retirees. And it's especially outrageous that there's a double standard. Congress isn’t touching its own pensions. Why are they doing this to hundreds of thousands of workers and retirees?"

Action in the House on the pension bill is expected this month before the holiday break.