BENEFIT PLANS

Qualified Pension Benefits The Company has pension plans covering certain U.S. employees that have been closed to new participants since July 1, 2003. Plans that cover certain salaried employees provide pension benefits based on the employee’s compensation during the ten years before retirement. The Company’s funding policy for salaried plans is to contribute annually based on actuarial projections and applicable regulations. Plans covering certain hourly employees and union members generally provide benefits of stated amounts for each year of service. The Company’s funding policy for hourly plans is to make at least the minimum annual contributions required by applicable regulations. Employees of the Company’s operations in countries outside of the U.S. participate to varying degrees in local pension plans, which in the aggregate are not significant.

Supplemental Executive Retirement Benefits The Company has non-qualified pension plans to provide supplemental executive retirement plan (SERP) benefits to certain officers. Benefits are payable at retirement based upon a percentage of the participant's compensation, as defined.

Plan Freeze and Re-measurement In July 2013, the Company's board of directors approved freezing certain pension and SERP plan benefits effective as of December 31, 2013 for U.S.-based salaried employees. The Company recognized the plan freeze in the three months ended September 30, 2013 as a curtailment, since it eliminates for a significant number of participants the accrual of defined benefits for all of their future services. The impact of the curtailment includes the one-time accelerated recognition of outstanding unamortized pre-tax prior service cost of $809 within general and administrative expense and a pre-tax reduction in AOCI of $52,462, attributable to the decrease in long-term pension liabilities. This curtailment event triggered a re-measurement for the affected benefit plans as of July 31, 2013 using a discount rate of 5.06 percent. The re-measurement resulted in a further reduction of long-term pension liabilities and AOCI (pre-tax) related to the actuarial gain occurring during the year of approximately $71,000. Freezing certain pension and SERP plan benefits, coupled with an anticipated increase in discount rate, is expected to result in a significant reduction of future pension expense.

Other Benefits In addition to providing pension benefits, the Company provides healthcare and life insurance benefits (referred to as other benefits) for certain retired employees. Eligible employees may be entitled to these benefits based upon years of service with the Company, age at retirement and collective bargaining agreements. Currently, the Company has made no commitments to increase these benefits for existing retirees or for employees who may become eligible for these benefits in the future. There are no plan assets and the Company funds the benefits as the claims are paid.

The following table sets forth the net periodic benefit cost for the Company’s defined benefit pension plans and other benefits for the three months ended September 30:



	Pension Benefits						Other Benefits
	2013			2012			2013			2012
Components of net periodic benefit cost
Service cost	$	2,647		$	2,862		$	—		$	—
Interest cost	6,865			7,957			157			204
Expected return on plan assets	(9,017		)	(10,205		)	—			—
Amortization of prior service (benefit) cost	(136		)	65			(122		)	(130		)
Recognized net actuarial loss	2,529			4,207			105			123
Curtailment loss	809			—			—			—
Net periodic pension benefit cost	$	3,697		$	4,886		$	140		$	197

The following table sets forth the net periodic benefit cost for the Company’s defined benefit pension plans and other benefits for the nine months ended September 30:



	Pension Benefits						Other Benefits
	2013			2012			2013			2012
Components of net periodic benefit cost
Service cost	$	9,308		$	8,585		$	—		$	—
Interest cost	20,778			23,873			471			611
Expected return on plan assets	(26,622		)	(30,616		)	—			—
Amortization of prior service (benefit) cost	(99		)	194			(366		)	(388		)
Recognized net actuarial loss	13,385			12,601			317			366
Curtailment loss (1)	1,968			—			—			—
Net periodic pension benefit cost	$	18,718		$	14,637		$	422		$	589

(1) The curtailment recognized during the nine months ended September 30, 2013 resulted from the departure of certain executive officers and the U.S. salary plan benefit freeze and was recorded within selling and administrative expense.

Contributions

There have been changes to the expected 2013 plan year contribution amounts previously disclosed. The benefit freeze of the defined-benefit pension plan for U.S.-based employees, coupled with higher discount rates, improved the funded status of the salaried plan and, therefore, the Company has no plans to make contributions to the pension plan for the next twelve months. For the nine months ended September 30, 2013 and 2012, contributions of $2,662 and $14,915, respectively, were made to the qualified and non-qualified pension plans.