Permanent and Total Disability Benefit Provisions in Industrial Pension Plans

P UBLIC interest and attention have recently been focused on the provision of disability retirement as well as age retirement benefits in industrial pension plans as a result of the series of collective bargaining agreements concluded in a number of major industries in the fall of 1949. The first of these agreements was signed on September 28, 1949, by the Ford Motor Company and the United Automobile, Aircraft and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (CIO) . The provision for disability benefits in this contract was limited in scope; the benefits were payable for retirement because of total and permanent disability to workers 55 years of age or older with 30 years of credited service.’ An agreement signed by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation and the United Steelworkers of America (CIO) a month later provided for disability benefits for employees with at least 15 years of continuous service who become “permanently incapacitated.” These agreements were followed in more or less rapid order by others in several mass production industries, especially steel, automobile, rubber, and glass. In these four industries alone, at least 80 retirement plans with provisions for the payment of disability benefits, covering more than 1.6 million employees, had been included in collective bargaining agreements signed between September 1949 and the end of June 1950. While the union emphasis on the inclusion of permanent and total disability benefits in retirement plans is a recent development, provisions for