Employee benefit plan

“ Limitation on Health Flexible Spending Arrangements- For purposes of this section, if a benefit is provided under a cafeteria plan through employer contributions to a health flexible spending arrangement, such benefit shall not be treated as a qualified benefit unless the cafeteria plan provides that an employee may not elect for any taxable year to have salary reduction contributions in excess of $2,500 made to such arrangement.'. ”

“ A plan established and maintained for its employees (or their beneficiaries) by a church or by a convention or association of churches includes a plan maintained by an organization, whether a civil law corporation or otherwise, the principal purpose or function of which is the administration or funding of a plan or program for the provision of retirement benefits or welfare benefits, or both, for the employees of a church or a convention or association of churches, if such organization is controlled by or associated with a church or a convention or association of churches. ”

“ A defined benefit plan is one which sets forth a fixed level of benefits. See § 1002 (35) . Contributions to a defined benefit plan are calculated on the basis of a number of actuarial assumptions about such things as employee turnover, mortality rates, compensation increases, and the rate of return on invested plan assets. See Stein, Raiders of the Corporate Pension Plan: The Reversion of Excess Plan Assets to the Employer, 5 Am.J.Tax Policy 117, 121-122, and n. ”

“ They provide that numerous "payroll practices," including the payment of vacation benefits "out of [an] employer's general assets" rather than from a trust fund, are not employee welfare benefit plans within the meaning of ERISA. [12] In addition, under the regulations, the term "employee welfare benefit plan" does not include the payment by an employer of premium rates for work performed during special periods such as holidays and weekends. [13] The Secretary has consistently adhered to this position even when the premium pay is accumulated and carried over to later years. ”

“ As a single-employer defined benefit plan, the Plan set forth a fixed level of benefits for employees. Plan participants who completed 10 years of service attained a vested right to accrued benefits, that is, those benefits earned under the Plan. ”

“ Appellee and her amici say that § 4 (f) (2) protects age-based distinctions in employee benefit plans only when justified by the increased cost of benefits for older workers. They cite an interpretive regulation promulgated by the Department of Labor, the agency initially charged with enforcing the Act, in 1979. ”

“ It is hereby declared to be in the policy of this Act to protect interstate commerce and the interests of participants in employee benefit plans and their beneficiaries, by requiring the disclosure and reporting to participants and beneficiaries of financial and other information with respect thereto, by establishing standards of conduct, responsibility, and obligation for fiduciaries of employee benefit plans, and by providing for appropriate remedies, sanctions, and ready access to the Federal courts. ”

“ Taking the Report of the American Federation of Labor as a convenient summary of the beneficiary activities of American trade unions, it appears that in 1907 of sixty-seven national unions paying benefits of all kinds, sixty-three paid death benefits, six paid benefits on the death of members' wives, twenty-four paid sick benefits, eight paid travelling benefits and six paid out-of-work benefits. The benefit which is most effective as an aid to the enforcement of collective bargaining is out-of-work relief. ”

“ Create good-quality jobs that pay prevailing wages in safe and healthy workplaces while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively with their employers. By ensuring that American taxpayers’ dollars benefit working families and their communities, and not multinational corporations or foreign governments, the plan will require that goods and materials are made in America and shipped on U.S.-flag, U.S.-crewed vessels. ”

“ The Society acts as the State’s agent with regard to paying out the State benefits, and in addition pays at the same time a supplementary benefit of one-third of the State benefit, for which an extra contribution is generally levied on the workers at the rate of 2d. per week, and most of the employers contribute to the supplementary benefit fund. ”

“ As a union develops benefits the dues required of members are larger. The unemployed member thus finds himself heavily burdened by the dues he must pay his union at the very time he needs most the protection afforded by the benefit. The establishment of the out-of-work benefit in the Iron Molders' Union was the direct result of the inauguration of a system of sick benefits in 1896. Members in arrears for dues for a period longer than thirteen weeks were excluded from sick relief. ”

“ Employers with at least 50 employees must either provide employees with adequate health benefits or pay a financial exaction if an employee who qualifies for federal subsidies purchases insurance through an exchange. ”

“ For all time he saves in finishing an article, he receives the full benefit, the employer’s benefit being the lower cost of production resulting from increased output. What right then, it is argued, has the employer, like a parasite, to make anything out of the time which the worker saves on the premium-bonus system. ”

“ The report names two reasons for recommending contributions to the fund by employers: first, “the employee should not in our judgment be re [Pg 119] quired to reduce his earnings further by the payment of contributions into reserves”; second, “the employer’s financial liability under the plan would operate as a continuous incentive to prevent unemployment as far as practicable.” ”

“ Second in importance among the systems of benevolent relief maintained by American trade unions is the sick benefit paid to members who are prevented by illness from working. Historically, the sick benefit was probably the earliest beneficiary feature inaugurated by local trade unions, but, for several reasons, its adoption by the national unions was delayed. At the present time two systems of sick benefits can be found among American trade unions. In some unions this benefit is paid from the funds of the local union but is subject to the general supervision of the national organizations. ”

“ The legislation I have recommended for workers in private industry should be accompanied by a parallel effort for the welfare of Government employees. We have accomplished much in this field, including a contributory life insurance program; equitable pay increases and a fringe benefits program, covering many needed personnel policy changes, from improved premium pay to a meaningful incentive award program. ”

“ The Boot and Shoe Workers' Union provides that members of sixty years of age, or those afflicted with chronic diseases at time of initiation, shall be eligible to half benefit only. [100] In the Brotherhood of Painters members of sound health and over fifty years of age when admitted are eligible to a semi-beneficial benefit of fifty dollars and to a funeral benefit of twenty-five dollars in case of death of wife. ”

“ The consideration that the employer benefits financially from the health and happiness of his employees is there, but it occupies a decidedly secondary place.
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to demonstrate statistically that welfare work, as distinct from safety work, is financially beneficial to the employer; that the Corporation has received any tangible return for the large sums it spends yearly to give its workers the opportunity to lead cleaner, healthier, happier, and broader lives. ”

“ The danger inherent in well-timed increases in benefits is the suggestion of a fist inside the velvet glove. Employees are not likely to miss the inference that the source of benefits now conferred is also the source from which future benefits must flow and which may dry up if it is not obliged. ”

“ During these periods, however, any member out of work can obtain remission of dues by application to the financial secretary. He must, however, pay such dues at the rate of ten per cent weekly when he secures employment. The total out-of-work benefit which may be paid in any one fiscal year is fifty-four dollars. Moreover, any member who has received fifty-four dollars in benefits is not entitled to any further sums until he shall have worked four weeks. ”

“ Another helpful feature of unemployment insurance is the incentive it will give to employers to plan more carefully in order that unemployment may be prevented by the stabilizing of employment itself.
Provisions for social security, however, are protections for the future. Our responsibility for the immediate necessities of the unemployed has been met by the Congress through the most comprehensive work plan in the history of the nation. ”

“ In the unions maintaining out-of-work benefits it is customary to provide as a precautionary measure that members must have been in good standing for a lengthy period before being entitled to the benefit. The Cigar Makers and the Deutsch-Amerikanischen Typographia provide that only members of the union in good standing for two years shall be entitled to the benefit. ”

“ The maximum benefit is to be ten dollars a week or fifty per cent of an employee’s wage, whichever is lower, and the maximum period of benefit to be ten weeks of any twelve months. The payment by each employer is to constitute the employment reserve of his firm and not to be added to the common pool. The creation of an Unemployment Administration of three members is suggested, one representing labour, one industry and one the general public. ”

“ Tonight our welfare-to-work partnership includes 10,000 companies who have hired hundreds of thousands of people, and our balanced budget will help another 200,000 people move to the dignity and pride of work. ”

“ The membership is drawn from "practical men of affairs, whose acknowledged leadership in thought and business makes them typical representatives of business elements that voluntarily work together for the general good." As defined by this organization, welfare work is something given to the employee by the employer for the welfare of both. It is not something the employee himself does to improve his own working conditions.
We are told that employees should assume the management of welfare work. ”

“ Decisions that define the coverage of the employer-Employee relationship under the Labor and Social Security acts are persuasive in the consideration of a similar coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act. ”

“ Along with reforming welfare, increasing the minimum wage, increasing child care assistance, and doubling the earned-income tax credit, the work incentives improvement act is another milestone on the path to opening work and rewarding responsibility for Americans. ”

“ Solidify the infrastructure of our care economy by creating jobs and raising wages and benefits for essential home care workers. These workers – the majority of whom are women of color – have been underpaid and undervalued for too long. The President’s plan makes substantial investments in the infrastructure of our care economy, starting by creating new and better jobs for caregiving workers. ”

“ As soon as the unions became sufficiently strong, financially and numerically, and had acquired experience in the management of the benefit, they, with few exceptions, guaranteed to their members a benefit of fixed amount. A fixed payment of one hundred dollars was guaranteed by the Iron Molders in 1879 on the death of a member, and in 1882 the voluntary organization known as the Beneficial Association, which had maintained the system of special assessments, was disbanded. ”

“ At Detroit in 1873 the Cigar Makers inaugurated an endowment plan which provided for the payment of a death benefit, the amount of which was to be the sum raised by an assessment of ten cents on each member. Similarly, the Glass Bottle Blowers, introducing the benefit as late as 1891, made provision for paying the amount secured by an assessment of twenty-five cents per capita. [89]
When the fluctuating benefits were inaugurated the unions were without experience in the exercise of beneficiary functions. ”

“ The wages, bonuses and subsidies of full-time members of the trade union committee of an entity shall be paid by the entity, and they shall enjoy the same social insurance and other welfare benefits as the other workers of their entity. ”

“ Pass this jobs bill, and companies will get a $4,000 tax credit if they hire anyone who has spent more than six months looking for a job. (Applause.) We have to do more to help the long-term unemployed in their search for work. This jobs plan builds on a program in Georgia that several Republican leaders have highlighted, where people who collect unemployment insurance participate in temporary work as a way to build their skills while they look for a permanent job. The plan also extends unemployment insurance for another year. ”

“ In regard to unemployment benefit, every one for whom no suitable work was available at the Employment Exchanges, or through his or her Trade Union, was to be paid maintenance, which, including benefits under the Unemployment Insurance Acts, should amount at least to 40s. per week for each householder and 25s. per week for each single man or woman over eighteen, with additional allowances for dependants. ”