Imagine working 30 years for the same company. Every morning, you wake at the crack of dawn, put on your uniform and do backbreaking work so you can get food on your family's table. All the while, you dream about retirement, when you will have the freedom and funds to enjoy the rest of your life with the person you love.

Many of us do just this, every day. If we are lucky, we work for a company that provides us with a pension that will allow us to take that post-retirement trip around the world, build that new house, or simply enjoy our old age. That is what my husband and I thought we had. We thought UPS was looking out for its loyal employees, making sure that the hard work we put in would come back to us in later years. But we were wrong.

UPS recently reconfigured its pension plan, taking only their current employees and leaving retirees to the mercy of Central States, a multiemployer pension fund that was on the verge of collapse. Now retirees like my husband have received notice that he could lose 50% of our pension as part of their attempt to save themselves. How can they do this? My husband worked day in and day out for UPS, and they have left him and other loyal retirees to fend for themselves.

The U.S. Department of Treasury has appointed Kenneth Feinberg to review these proposed pension cuts. We are asking Mr. Feinberg and the Treasury reject theses cuts. Please don’t allow Central States Pension Fund to fix its financial mistakes on the backs of these 400,000 pensioners, who worked so hard to achieve their retirement.

And this issue isn’t limited to Central States Pension’s retirees -- if the Treasury approves this cutback plan, other struggling multiemployer funds could be encouraged to do the same thing. According to the government, about 10 percent of participants in such funds — more than 1 million workers and retirees — are in plans projected to run out of money soon.

My husband is now disabled, and I am his fulltime caregiver. Neither of us is able to work to make up for the cuts that will be hitting us in July. Just like that, the $2500 a month that enabled us to cover our obligations will be $1250, leaving us on or near the poverty line and forcing us to rely on the government for our most basic needs. No one should have to face this, especially not employees of a company that earned more than $3 billion last year.  

Employees like my husband kept up their end of the bargain, now let's make pension funds keep theirs. Please stand up for hardworking Americans. Please ask Kenneth Feinberg and the Treasury not to approve these cuts.