Employee Benefit Plans

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2011

Employee Benefit Plans [Abstract]

EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS

11. EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS

We sponsor defined benefit pension plans that cover substantially all non-union and certain union-represented employees. Benefits are generally based upon the employee’s compensation and years of service. We also have a non-qualified Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan (“SERP”). The SERP, which is unfunded, provides defined pension benefits in addition to the defined benefit pension plan to eligible participants based on average earnings, years of service and age at retirement. Effective June 30, 2009, we froze the accrual of benefits under defined benefit pension plans and SERP that cover the majority of our employees.

We sponsor a defined contribution plan covering substantially all non-union and certain union employees. We match a portion of employees’ voluntary contributions to this plan. We suspended our matching contributions in the second quarter of 2009. Our matching contributions were reinstated in July 2010.

Other union-represented employees are covered by defined benefit pension plans jointly sponsored by us and the union, or by union-sponsored multi-employer plans.

The components of the benefit plans expense consisted of the following:

	Three months ended						Nine months ended
	September 30,						September 30,
( in thousands)	2011			2010			2011			2010
Service cost	$	12		$	130		$	36		$	436
Interest cost		6,710			6,199			19,448			18,935
Expected return on plan assets, net of expenses		(5,753	)		(6,055	)		(17,257	)		(18,133	)
Amortization of prior service cost		—			4			1			14
Amortization of actuarial loss		893			954			2,237			3,068
Curtailment loss		—			8			—			58
Total for defined benefit plans		1,862			1,240			4,465			4,378
Multi-employer plans		116			112			349			451
SERP		296			350			836			909
Defined contribution plans		2,234			887			6,979			887
Net periodic benefit cost		4,508			2,589			12,629			6,625
Allocated to discontinued operations		—			—			—			(103	)
Net periodic benefit cost — continuing operations	$	4,508		$	2,589		$	12,629		$	6,522

We contributed $3.0 million to fund current benefit payments for our SERP during the first nine months of 2011. We anticipate contributing an additional $0.8 million to fund the SERP’s benefit payments during the remainder of 2011. We did not make any contributions to our defined benefit plans during the first nine months of 2011.