An Important Decision

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Originally uploaded by Randuwa

That probably passed below most of your radar screens.....

"Longshore Union Grants Same-Sex Pension Rights"

The longtime partner of a San Francisco-area longshore union worker has been granted rights to his partner's pension in what legal advocates Thursday called a "huge" and precedent-setting step toward LGBT retirement equality.

Marvin Burrows and William Swenor of Hayward, Calif., had been together for 51 years when Swenor died suddenly in March 2005. Burrows' claim to Swenor's pension was initially rejected by the the Industrial Employers and Distributors Association and Warehouse Union (ILWU), to which Swenor had belonged for 35 years.

After more than two years of talks, the ILWU's Local 6 renegotiated its contract to provide registered domestic partners with the same pension benefits as spouses.

The local agreed to make this change retroactive to March 1, 2005, enabling Burrows, now 71, and anyone else in the same situation to receive his deceased partner's pension benefits. Covered are about 5,500 warehouse and distribution workers in Northern California. (The longshoremen themselves are covered under another contract, to be renegotiated next year, union spokesman John Showalter told Gay.com.)

Though the fight was a long one, the union should be commended, said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which represented Burrows in the action settled out of court.

"It is still pretty unusual, even in California, even in the Bay Area, to confer same-sex pension benefits, and one of the hardest issues to make significant progress on," Minter told Gay.com. "Employers are much quicker to add health benefits (for LGBTs) than pension or retirement benefits."

This is because while some states, like California, grant degrees of partner rights, state laws are trumped by ERISA, the federal retirement law.

"Some employers are under the impression that DOMA (the federal Defense of Marriage Act) prevents them from offering same-sex benefits; it does not," Minter said. "It prevents the government from doing so, but not private employers.

"So we sent a demand letter on Marvin's behalf, saying that at a minimum, this was the right thing to do."

Going without benefits devastated Burrows financially, and he lost the home he and Swenor had shared for decades. He had thought he would get them based on California's domestic-partner law. The couple also married in San Francisco in 2004, though their nuptials, like thousands of others', were tossed out by the courts.

The pair met in high school in Flint, Mich., in 1953; Burrows was 15, Swenor two years older.

"We knew it was special even at that age," Burrows told the Advocate in February.

When Burrows' father kicked him out for being gay, he moved in with Swenor and his mother the following year.

"I found that there was a support group without our knowing what to call it," Burrows told a Michigan oral history project. "Many gay and straight friends gave us teenagers a place to meet, party and just have safe fun."

But seeking greater acceptance, the couple moved to the Bay Area in 1966. They became active in gay senior causes; Burrows is seniors outreach director for Marriage Equality USA.

"Finally our community is being recognized, and my 51 years with Bill will mean something to others, not just me," Burrows said in a statement Thursday. "I know Bill is smiling down on me today."