WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) issued the following statement following an announcement by JP Morgan that they were going to honor the supplemental pension plans of thousands of Washington Mutual employees:

“Last week I, along with many Washingtonians, was saddened by the news of Washington Mutual’s failure. This was not the fault of most of the company’s 43,000 employees.  While some of their retirement savings were secured by the federal government, supplemental pensions and other earned income were not. Until today, JP Morgan remained silent on whether they would honor these benefits. Since the news of the FDIC turning WaMu over broke, I have been working to ensure JP Morgan Chase does the right thing. Someone must be responsible for ensuring that the greatest assets in these financial institutions, the employees, are not left empty handed when these deals are done.  I am pleased to announce that they are going to pay some of those benefits. This is money they have earned and rightly deserved.  While I welcome JP Morgan to our community, I call on them to keep the interest of all the thousands of employees in mind.

 

“But the story doesn’t end here.  I am going to continue looking into how these transactions happened, what safeguards are in place for customers and employees, and what action we need to take to ensure this doesn’t happen in the future.” 

 

 

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