Janet Dhillon
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions voted Thursday by a narrow 12 to 11 margin to advance to the full Senate the nomination of Janet Dhillon to serve as director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.
The vote split down party lines, with the chair of the committee, Senator Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, voting in favor of Dhillon, and ranking member Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, voting against the nomination.
Dhillon, who joined the Department of Labor in March as a senior counselor in the office of the DOL solicitor, previously served as chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under the first administration of President Donald Trump. She was nominated as chair in May 2019 and served until January 20, 2021, then as a commissioner until she resigned in November 2022.
Before joining the EEOC, Dhillon serviced as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate security of Burlington Stores Inc. She also served as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate security of J.C. Penney Co. Inc.
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In his opening remarks at the hearing, Cassidy said that under the administration of former President Joe Biden, the PBGC was plagued with “severe operational issues, costing taxpayers and putting Americans’ retirement plans at alarming levels of underfunding.”
However, the PBGC in November 2024 reported a fourth consecutive year of positive financial positions in both its single-employer and multiemployer pension insurance programs.
Cassidy also accused the PBGC of mismanaging the rollout of the Democrats’ 2021 multiemployer pension bailout, the Special Financial Assistance Program, “failing to implement safeguards that ensured plans’ applications did not include dead participants.” He highlighted the most notable case, in which the agency overpaid the Central States Pension Fund by $127 million after the fund accidentally included 3,479 dead participants in its bailout request. The Teamsters, who manage this fund, returned the money to the government.
“We need a fresh perspective leading PBGC,” Cassidy said. “Someone who will reform the agency to better serve the American people. Ms. Dhillon is committed to this mission.”
Senator Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, stood in for Sanders at the hearing and read his opening statement. Sanders said he is strongly opposed to Dhillon. Sanders’ remarks pointed to the more than 30 million workers and retirees who still have defined benefit pension plans, saying that the mission of the PBGC is to protect those pensions and to pay out monthly retirement benefits to retirees who work for companies that go bankrupt or have terminated their pension plans.
Sanders’ remarks cited the Butch Lewis Act, which he helped pass as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which allows the Department of the Treasury and the PBGC to provide grants under the Special Financial Assistance Program to multiemployer pension funds.
“Today, the provision has prevented the pensions of 1.3 million workers and retirees from being cut by up to 70%,” according to Sanders’ remarks, read by Baldwin. “We have not heard from Ms. Dhillon if she will obey this law or if she will attempt to undermine it if she is confirmed.”
Sanders’ remarks also referenced that when Dhillon served as the senior vice president of U.S. Airways, she helped lead an effort that terminated the pension plans of more than 50,000 pilots, flight attendants and mechanics. Additionally, when she was at J.C. Penney, Sanders’ remarks continued, she helped lead the effort to sell off its pension plan to an insurance company, “negatively impacting over 40,000 workers and retirees.”
“In my opinion, we do not need a PBGC director who has worked to terminate and slash the pension benefits of tens of thousands of workers and retirees,” Sanders’ remarks shared, as read by Baldwin. “We need a PBGC director who will work to protect and expand defined benefit plans for tens of millions of workers and retirees in America.”
If approved by the full Senate, Dhillon would serve as head of the PBGC for a term of five years.
Tags: Janet Dhillon, PBGC, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
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