Washington, May 14, 2003 - Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) today introduced the ERISA Reporting and Compliance Act of 2003. The bill will protect workers’ pensions and give the Department of Labor broader authority to enforce current ERISA law.

The bill will amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to require pension plans to submit plan summary documents, known as a Form 5500, to the Department of Labor (DOL) within 90 days after the close of the plan year. Under the current law, companies can wait up to 9 months before filing their plans with the DOL. The bill also requires the Secretary of Labor to notify, within 30 days, plans that have not submitted documents by the deadline. If the documents are not submitted within 30 days after the issuance of the notice, actions will be taken by the Department of Labor to freeze the fiduciary’s assets until such time as the documents are submitted.

“In the past year we we’ve heard about Enron and MCI WorldCom,” stated Kucinich. “But in Cleveland, workers at a small company called Lakewood Manufacturing suffered at the hands of a unscrupulous executive. My bill will ensure that the Department of Labor has the authority it needs to enforce federal pension law, especially at small companies, and ensure fiduciaries are accountable for protecting workers retirement savings. It is urgent that Congress act now to protect employees of companies from Lakewood Manufacturing Company, in my district, to MCI WorldCom and Enron.”

While the bill would protect all of the more than 800,000 plans submitted to the DOL ever year, the bill would particularly help small business pension plans that often times slip through the cracks.

Eclipsed by the high profile pension scandals at large corporations such as Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing, thousands of other employees around the country have been no less harmed by gross fiduciary malfeasance at smaller, less notable companies. In Ohio’s 10th Congressional District, a group of 19 employees saw their retirement funds vanish as their employer, Lakewood Manufacturing Company, repeatedly dismissed employee requests for the release of plan documents and ultimately closed, having lost over $2 million in pension funds – the entire pension plan. Later investigation revealed that over a period of three years, the plan’s fiduciary -- also the owner of the company -- used funds from the employee pension plan to make dangerous, imprudent, and poorly diversified investments in companies for which he had a personal stake, such as the Psychic Discovery Network, now bankrupt. The Department of Labor failed to investigate the plan, even though the company did not file the most basic plan summary document, required by law, Form 5500, for three consecutive years.

Kucinich’s bill would protect workers at companies like Lakewood Manufacturing Company by giving the DOL greater powers to enforce ERISA law and ensuring that companies comply with the law and file a Form 5500 in a timely manner.