National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP) is a labor advocacy group that aims to protect multiemployer plans, or pension plans created by an agreement between multiple employers and a labor union to provide recipients with healthcare, retirement, and welfare benefits. ^{[1] [2]} Multiemployer plans often involve employers from the same industry (such as construction) and are managed by a board of trustees comprised of an equal number of members from the union side and the employer side. ^[3]

NCCMP is comprised of international and local labor unions, employee associations, local employers, and multiemployer fund specialists.. ^[4] NCCMP pursues its advocacy agenda through working with Congress, presidential administrations, government agencies, and courts. ^[5]

Background

Founded in 1974, National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans was conceived to be an advocate for multiemployer benefit plans and the retirement, health, and welfare benefits they provide against regulations, cuts, and other pro-business legislation that would lead to their demise. ^[6]

Activity

NCCMP claims to be nonpartisan and boasts that it oversees plans and has members in all the major industries of the American economy: “airlines, agriculture, building and construction, bakery and confectionary, entertainment, healthcare, hospitality, longshore, manufacturing, mining, retail, and wholesale food [sic], service, sports, steel, and trucking.” ^[7]

It advocates on behalf of these plans and members by lobbying, meeting with, and making deals with members of Congress, the presidential administrations, government regulatory agencies, and courts, promoting the interests of the sponsors of such multiemployer plans. NCCMP communicates with unions and representatives of organized labor during challenges posed to multiemployer benefit plans. It also keeps track of the development of legislation and regulatory policy to educate and keep the labor movement and those concerned with multiemployer pensions informed. ^[8]

In March 2017, NCCMP chairman Sean McGarvey wrote a letter to the Committee on Ways & Means in the House of Representatives to express the NCCMP’s opposition to both the proposal to replace the “Cadillac Tax” of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with a cap on the exclusion for employer-sponsored healthcare plans and the Cadillac Tax itself, claiming that either option would “impose a significant burden” on Americans with employment-based healthcare plans and on their plan-contributing employers. In the letter, McGarvey claimed that the NCCMP protects over “20 million active and retired American workers and their families” with multiemployer plans. While acknowledging that “growing medical cost inflation” was a serious problem, McGarvey argued that multiemployer plans were important actors in cost containment and that quality healthcare “is an investment” and not merely a “benefit.” McGarvey attacked “A Better Way,” a policy agenda set forth by then-House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and other major House Republicans, for endorsing the proposed cap. ^{[9] [10]}

According to 2018 tax filings, NCCMP is formally affiliated with the Center for Military Recruitment Assessment and Veterans Employment (to recruit individuals leaving the military or national guard into civilian careers), the NCCMP Research and Education Corporation (to “promote awareness of public regarding workers covered under benefit plans”), and the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO, an organization which settles disputes between labor unions involved in construction. ^[11]

NCCMP gives out awards to politicians and public servants based on their contributions to the organized labor movement and to multiemployer plan system specifically. It awarded its “George Meany Award,” a recognition of efforts to advance pensions, to tenth general president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) Terry O’Sullivan in 2019 and to both Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2021. ^[12] Numerous individuals have received its John L. Lewis award, named after the famous American organized labor activist, since then-AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Richard Trumka won it in 2001. ^[13]

Funding

According to its 2018 filings with the IRS, NCCMP had a total revenue of $2,766,019, total expenses of $2,802,663, and net assets of $2,015,113. ^[14]

NCCMP pays consultant groups for their services. In 2018, it paid New York-based Brunswick Group LLC $509,209, New York-based Segal Consulting $220,000, and D.C.-based Alston & Bird LLP $181,392. ^[15] NCCMP also gave grants to two groups in 2018: Labor of Love Diabetes Research Institute received a “sponsorship” of $25,000 and Diabetes Research Institute Foundation received a “charitable donation” of $5,000. ^[16]

NCCMP received a $15,000 grant from the Oil and Natural Gas Industry Labor Management Committee in 2019. ^[17]

Leadership

As of 2022, Michael D. Scott was the executive director of NCCMP, a position he was nominated to in December 2016. ^{[18] [19]} Before NCCMP, Scott ran an advisory firm that consulted on federal credit, federal budget issues, and housing finance reform. He had previously worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury dealing with federal credit, federal and private restructurings, privatization, and government economic policies. He also worked as senior adviser to then-Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chairs Chris Cox and Mary Schapiro during the 2008 financial crisis. ^[20]

In June 2021, Michael D. Scott appeared on the World of Multiemployer Benefit Funds podcasts to discuss the $86 billion that the “American Rescue Plan” (signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, 2021) provided to 10.7 million workers through 185 pension funds. He discussed the work of the NCCMP, the goals of the American Rescue Plan, and warned about the detrimental effects of “doing nothing” to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. ^[21]  In the official description of a September 2021 event it hosted at the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood, Florida, the NCCMP stated that the “multiemployer community” came together to “pass some of the most important legislation affecting multiemployer pension and health funds in recent history, that provides important relief from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.” ^[22]

As of 2022, Mariah M. Becker was the director of research and education at NCCMP, overseeing the development of policy proposals that would help the multiemployer plan system. Before joining NCCMP in 2016, Becker worked at Segal Consulting for ten years with a focus on multiemployer benefit pension plans. ^[23]

In 2022, Kelly Ahl was NCCMP’s director of members services and assistant to the executive director. Ahl worked for North America’s Building Trade Unions (NABTU) for 15 years before joining NCCMP, serving in multiple roles, some of which dealt with government affairs and NABTU’s political action committee. ^[24]