EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2019

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits Disclosure [Text Block]

EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS

The Company has three frozen defined benefit pension plans covering certain employees or former employees of three U.S. subsidiaries. The Company also has pension plans covering certain employees of several foreign subsidiaries. The Company also sponsors a number of defined contribution plans in the U.S. and at foreign subsidiaries. The Company contributed approximately $0.4 million to the pension plans during the three months ended March 31, 2019, and expects to contribute approximately $2.3 million to the pension plans during the remainder of 2019.

The components of net periodic pension cost consisted of the following for the periods set forth below (amounts in thousands):



	Three months ended
	March 31,
	2019			2018
Service cost	$	225		$	137
Interest cost	1,123			1,083
Expected return on assets	(1,189		)	(1,492		)
Amortization of unrecognized prior service cost	56			50
Amortization of net unrecognized loss	765			676
Net periodic pension cost	$	980		$	454

Service cost is recorded as cost of sales in the Condensed Consolidated Statement of Operations while all other components are recorded in other income.