EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT PLANS

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2015

EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT PLANS

EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT PLANS

10. EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT PLANS

Defined Benefit Pension and OPEB Welfare Plans

The Company sponsors and/or contributes to pension plans ("Pension Plans") and other postretirement benefit ("OPEB") plans covering many of our United States employees, in whole or in part, based on meeting certain eligibility criteria. In addition, the Company and its subsidiaries have various pension plans and other forms of postretirement arrangements outside the United States, namely in Canada and Taiwan.

The Pension Plans provide benefits to certain employees and retirees and are closed to new hires. Effective January 31, 2014, amendments to the Pension Plans for United States non-bargained employees froze all future benefit accruals for non-bargained employees who were not already frozen. The financial impact of these amendments to the Pension Plans was recognized in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The OPEB plans are unfunded and provide medical and life insurance benefits for certain employees and their dependents. The OPEB plans require retiree contributions based on retiree-selected coverage levels for certain retirees and their dependents and provide for the sharing of future benefit cost increases between the Company and participants.

Modifications to the OPEB plans were made with respect to certain participants, to deliver retiree medical benefits through health reimbursement account contributions. For the impacted participants, these retiree medical changes became effective on January 1, 2014 for Medicare eligible retirees and January 1, 2015 for non-Medicare eligible retirees. In addition, life insurance benefits for non-bargained future retirees were eliminated effective January 1, 2014. These benefit changes were approved and communicated to participants in October 2013 and the quantitative financial impact to the OPEB plans for the United States was reflected beginning in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Components of net periodic benefit income for the three months ended March 31, 2015 and 2014 includes the following:

	Pensions Three Months Ended March 31,						OPEB Benefits Three Months Ended March 31,
(In millions)	2015			2014			2015			2014
Components of net periodic benefit income
Interest cost	$	(7.7	)	$	(7.9	)	$	(1.1	)	$	(1.1	)
Service cost		(1.1	)		(0.9	)		(0.2	)		(0.2	)
Expected return on assets		11.4			11.8			-			-
Amortization of:
Prior service credit		-			-			2.3			2.3
Actuarial gain (loss)		(0.7	)		0.1			-			-
Total net periodic benefit income	$	1.9		$	3.1		$	1.0		$	1.0

Contributions

There were no significant contributions to the pension plan trusts during the three months ended March 31, 2015 and 2014. We estimate that we will make payments of approximately $1.9 million for benefit payments and contributions related to our Pension Plans and $8.9 million for benefit payments related to OPEB plans for the year ending December 31, 2015.

Defined Contribution Plans

Most of our employees are covered by defined contribution plans under which we make contributions to individual employee accounts. Our expense related to our defined contribution plans was approximately $3.9 million and $4.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2015 and 2014, respectively.