Respondents (collectively, Heinz) are retired participants in a multiemployer pension plan (hereinafter Plan) administered by petitioner. Heinz retired from the construction industry after accruing enough pension credits to qualify for early retirement payments under a "service only" pension scheme that pays him the same monthly benefit he would have received had he retired at the usual age. The Plan prohibits such beneficiaries from certain "disqualifying employment" after they retire, suspending monthly payments until they stop the forbidden work. When Heinz retired, the Plan defined "disqualifying employment" to include a job as a construction worker but not as a supervisor, the job Heinz took. In 1998, the Plan expanded its definition to include any construction industry job and stopped Heinz's payments when he did not leave his supervisor's job. Heinz sued to recover the suspended benefits, claiming that the suspension violated the "anti-cutback" rule of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which prohibits any pension plan amendment that would reduce a participant's "accrued benefit," ERISA §204(g), 29 U. S. C. §1054(g). The District Court granted the Plan judgment on the pleadings, but the Seventh Circuit reversed, holding that imposing new conditions on rights to benefits already accrued violates the anti-cutback rule.

Held: ERISA §204(g) prohibits a plan amendment expanding the categories of postretirement employment that triggers suspension of the payment of early retirement benefits already accrued. Pp. 3-11.

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