DuPont and Dow Chemical Company announced on December 11, 2015, that their boards of directors had approved an agreement for a “merger of equals.” Naturally, this plan raised concerns about the security of retiree pensions and other benefits, and we needed a mechanism to organize and communicate with the over 100,000 retirees. Paul Kende and I then began a dialogue with the National Retiree Legislative Network (NRLN) about forming a DuPont Chapter.
- By Jim Odle, President, Dupont Retirees Chapter
- Chapter Webpage

Jim Odle, President Dupont Retirees Chapter
In my Welcome Message to the DuPont Retirees Chapter (DRC) members on July 20, 2016, I noted that our purpose is (1) to support the NRLN’s lobbying efforts to protect retiree income security by legislative advocacy, and (2) to create an organization designed to serve the common interests of all present and future DuPont retirees in preserving our pension and other benefits.
Paul and I divided tasks. I took on the task of traveling to Washington to advocate for NRLN’s proposals to strengthen Federal law to protect retiree benefits while Paul would develop and maintain high level management contacts within DuPont (later Corteva) to advocate with them to maintain our retiree benefits.
We explained to our chapter members that the DuPont Retirees Chapter webpage would serve as a repository. of our communications with the retiree network on pension and benefit security issues and concerns, DuPont SEC filings, and media articles on the DuPont – Dow merger and other issues, potentially impacting DuPont retiree benefits. The communications posted on our webpage (https://nrln.org//nrln-dupont-retirees-chapter/) have also been emailed directly to our DRC members.
The merger of Dupont and Dow was completed on August 31, 2017, with the name DowDuPont. From the start, the plan was for DowDuPont to split into spinoffs. On August 17, 2019, three spinoffs were announced: Dow, DuPont and Corteva, an agriscience company. All retiree benefit plans and obligations were allocated to Corteva, along with corresponding assets. We decided to keep the DuPont Retirees Chapter name because practically all members retired from DuPont and its subsidiaries.
Corteva continues to be the sponsor/owner of the DuPont Pension Plan. Since 2016, Paul has maintained communications with DuPont and later with Corteva top management, expressing retiree concerns about the security of our pensions, and advocating for actions to protect it. Over the years, Paul has also been writing periodically updated overviews of the financial status of the Pension Plan. Corteva has also continued the $1,400/year healthcare subsidy (HRA) for retirees and spouses. However, as of 1/1/22, despite our protests and suggested alternatives, we lost $200 from the HRA allowance.
Probably a more serious loss to retirees is that Corteva discontinued all our Group Term Life Insurance benefits, which for most of us cannot be replaced at a reasonable cost, if at all, due to age or health issues. It should be noted that the insurance was term insurance (not whole life) and is in effect only as long as premiums are paid (like automobile insurance). Even though some retirees paid into the optional contributory part of these group term life insurance policies, there were no cash values in any of these insurance policies at the time of cancellation.
Many of us fear the loss of the remaining HRA allowance, although we do not know that Corteva is planning to do this. We have considered whether the Chapter could take any action to try to reverse Corteva’s elimination of our contributory and non-contributory life insurance. However, our retirement benefits plan documents contain a “reservation of rights” clause that gives Corteva the right to modify or eliminate the life insurance plan at any time – such reservations of rights have been repeatedly approved/validated by the Courts.
I have attended the NRLN’s Washington, DC initiatives to lobby members of Congress, for passage of NRLN’s proposals on retirement issues, until 2020, due to COVID (these meetings have now resumed). I have concentrated on meeting with members of Congress or their staff, from states that have large numbers of DuPont retirees.
DuPont retirees supported the NRLN’s pension recoupment proposal that was passed in the Secure 2.0 Act in December 2022. It changed the unlimited years for pension recoupment (paying back over payments) to within three years of the initial overpayment, limited recoupment to no more than 10% of the overpayment per year and excluded recoupment against a beneficiary. Also, most of its proposals on improving the Annual Funding Notice on pension plans were included in the bill. We also support most of the other proposals for which the NRLN advocates.
We believe it is important to continue supporting the NRLN’s lobbying efforts to protect retiree pension plans in mergers, acquisitions and spinoffs, as well as when a pension plan sponsor decides to “de-risk” its pension plan, by transferring it to an insurance company, for annuities to replace pension payments.
Recently, we have been in touch with Corteva top management and advocated that if they decide to annuitize our Pension Plan, they should also purchase secondary insurance against insurance company failure, to replace the loss of the annuity should the insurance company fail to continue the annuity payments. They rejected our proposal, and we believe the only way to achieve that is through legislation to require that annuities resulting from pension de-risking be insured by a second highly related insurance company (i.e. re-insurance to replace the loss of PBGC insurance).
There are members of Congress who have expressed interest in this proposal and NRLN is holding discussions with them. Our recent trip to Washington focused on this issue to build support for re-insurance and restoration of several other protections provided for pensions by ERISA but are not in place for annuities. Please read my latest report posted on our webpage for details.