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This section explains what you need to know about participation and vesting. Both depend on your hours of service and how long you stay in covered employment. It also explains how your Plan counts different hours of service when determining whether you meet participation and vesting requirements.
Topics Below
Participation
Vesting
Hours of Service
Covered Hours
Military Service Credit
Portability
Special Vesting Rule
Participation
You become an active participant by working at a job covered by the Plan for at least 750 covered hours over two consecutive calendar years (375 covered hours if you are a seasonal employee working in the food processing industry). You continue as an active participant as long as you work at least 250 covered hours each calendar year. 
Vesting
Vesting means you have the right to receive a future benefit from your Plan when you retire whether or not you stay in covered employment.
You become vested when you complete five years of vesting service. One of those years must be after 1990. If you do not meet this rule, you are considered vested if you completed at least 10 years of vesting service before 1991.
If you are not vested when you reach normal retirement age (usually age 65), a special vesting rule applies. Under this rule, you are considered vested if you are an active participant at any time after age 65 (or if later, on the second anniversary of your first covered hour under the Plan).
Once you are vested, you are protected from a forfeiture or complete loss of Plan benefits. You can start receiving your retirement benefit as early as age 55 (or sooner if you qualify). In addition, if you are vested and die before retirement, your family receives death benefits from the Plan.
A year of vesting service is a calendar year when you work at least 500 hours of service. If you are a seasonal employee working in the food processing industry, the minimum is 250 covered hours per calendar year. Your hours of service include your covered hours and several other kinds of hours (explained under Losing and Protecting Benefits).
Remember, no matter how many hours of service you earn in a given calendar year, you can only earn one year of vesting service for that year.
Click here to view a chart which shows how a sample participant became vested.
Hours of Service
Your Plan participation, vesting, recent coverage, benefit eligibility and benefit amounts—all depend mainly on how many hours you work, the type of job you work in, and whether your employer is required to contribute to the Pension Trust for those hours.
Different types of hours may be counted for these purposes. So you need to understand the various kinds of hours of service your Plan recognizes and how those hours are counted.
For vesting, the Plan recognizes your covered hours and several other types of hours of service. For most other Plan requirements, it is only covered hours that count.
Because covered hours are so important, this section explains how they work in more detail. The next section explains other types of hours of service recognixed by the Plan such as non-covered employment, disability absence, and non-covered Teamster work.
Covered Hours
Covered hours are important. Unlike other types
of hours of service, which only count toward vesting, covered hours also count toward:
- Maintaining your recent coverage, which is a
key eligibility requirement for many Plan benefits.
- Determining the amount of your Plan benefits.
- Qualifying for higher early retirement benefits under the Rule of 84.
- Qualifying for unreduced early retirement benefits if you are covered by a PEER pension agreement.
A covered hour is an hour of your employment for which your employer is required to make contributions to the Pension Trust under the terms of a written pension agreement, usually a Teamster collective bargaining agreement. Hours of work (or paid time off) for which no employer contributions are required by your pension agreement do not count as covered hours.
Many Plan requirements depend on the number of covered hours you have in a specific time period (such as the calendar year). It is important to know which of your hours of employment are covered hours.
Although many pension agreements require contributions
for all paid hours, some agreements only require contributions on straight
time hours—with no contributions for overtime hours. Other agreements
contain daily, weekly, monthly or annual maximums that limit the number
of hours for which contributions are payable. Hours worked beyond those
limits do not count as covered hours. Some agreements require contributions
for certain paid time off such as holidays, vacation, jury duty or sick
leave and others do not.
Military Service Credit
If your covered employment is interrupted by a call to active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces and you meet certain other requirements, you may qualify to have your period of military service count as covered employment.
If you qualify, your time in the military counts as covered employment from the date you leave covered employment with an employer through the date you return to covered employment with the same employer. You are credited with covered hours, contributions and vesting service for your period of military service just as if you remained actively working for your same covered employer. This pension credit applies when determining all benefits available under the Plan including survivor benefits.
To qualify, you must meet all of the following requirements:
- You must leave covered employment to enter military service, and
- Your period of military service must not be longer than limits set by law (usually not more than five years), and
- You must return to covered employment within the period set by law (usually within 90 days of your discharge date), and
- You must return to covered employment for the same employer who was your last covered employer before your induction, and
- You must receive an honorable discharge.
Not all types of military service count under these rules. If you think your military service may qualify, contact your Area Administrative Office as soon as possible. You need to provide a copy of your Discharge Papers for verification.
Portability
Your Plan benefits are portable. Not all your covered
employment has to be with the same employer or in the same job or location.
You can change jobs, locations or local unions within the 13 Western states and continue to earn Plan benefits as long as you stay in covered employment with a covered employer. If you need to change jobs or stop covered employment, it is a good idea to check first with your Area Administrative Office to see how your benefits may be affected.
Special Vesting Rule
For Older Participants in New Groups
There is a special vesting rule that allows older participants who enter the Plan as part of a new group to vest more quickly. Under this special vesting rule, if your new group enters the Plan on or after January 1, 2002 you may be able to count your years of continuous past employment as years of vesting service. You must meet the following requirements:
- You must be part of a new group entering the Plan on or after January 1, 2002.
- You must be age 52 or older on the date the group enters the Plan.
- You must be eligible for continuous past employment.
Click here for more information about continuous past employment.
Under this special vesting rule, you become vested when the combination of your years of continuous past employment plus your years of contributory service equals five.
However, the years of continuous past employment that can be counted for this special vesting rule depend on your age on the initial date your group enters the Plan. Click here to see the maximum years of continuous past employment you can count as years of vesting service under the special vesting rule.
Example 1: Suppose you are age 54 when your new group first enters the Plan and you have three years of continuous past employment. Those three years count as years of vesting service when you enter the Plan. You only need to complete two more years of vesting service to satisfy the Plan’s five-year vesting rule.
Example 2: Or let’s say you’re age 53 when your new group first enters the Plan and you have six years of continuous past employment. Based on the chart, you can count two of your years of continuous past employment as years of vesting service when you enter the Plan. You only need to work three more years in covered employment to become vested with five years of vesting service.
Overall, you need to have a total of five years of vesting service to be vested under Plan rules if you are under age 65 (as explained earlier in this section).
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