The government is preparing to cut benefits over the next few years for hundreds of thousands of retirees covered by underfunded multi-employer private pension plans.

The Obama administration announced on Wednesday that well-known mediator Kenneth Feinberg review applications from pension plans under a law passed last year. The law would cut benefits as a last ditch means to stave off insolvency of troubled plans such as the huge Teamsters Central State Fund.

The new law earned mixed reviews from the unions whose members are covered by such defined benefit plans, including construction workers, Teamster truckers and food service workers.

The Teamsters and AARP opposed the law when it passed last year as part of a governmentwide spending bill. But other unions saw it as a solution that was preferable to plans becoming insolvent and getting a federal bailout.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew named Feinberg, an attorney, to review applications for fairness. Feinberg has administered the compensation funds for claims from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and from families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.