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 types of hours of service when determining whether you meet participation and vesting requirements.

Topics Below

Active Participant
Vesting
Year of Vesting Service
Hours of Service
Portability
Special Vesting Rule for New Groups
Military Service
About Your Personal Benefit Statement

Active Participant

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.

To receive any of the benefits offered by your Plan, you must first become an active participant. Most benefits also require that you stay in covered employment long enough to be vested and meet specific eligibility requirements.

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.

If you have a forfeiture of service (explained in Losing and Protecting Benefits), all your years of vesting service up to that point are lost and don’t count towards meeting the five-year or the ten-year vesting rule.

Five-Year Vesting Rule
You become vested when you complete five years of vesting service. One of those years must be after 1990. If you don’t earn any years of vesting service after 1990, you fall under the Plan’s ten-year vesting rule and will only be considered vested if you completed at least 10 years of vesting service before 1991.

Special Vesting Rule Ages 65 and Over
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).

Click here for an example of how a participant becomes vested.

Year of Vesting Service

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.

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.

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.

Covered hours are important. Click here to see how they work in more detail. Click here to learn about other types of hours of service recognized by the Plan such as non-covered employment, disability absence and non-covered Teamster work.

Portability

Your Plan benefits are portable. Not all of 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’s a good idea to check first with your Area Administrative Office to see how your benefits may be affected.

Special Vesting Rule For New Groups

For Participants Age 52 and Over 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 all of the following requirements:

• You must be part of a new group entering the Plan on or after January 1, 2002, and
• You must be age 52 or older on the date the group enters the Plan, and
• 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.

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 as shown in the chart on this page. 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 55 when your new group first enters the Plan and you have six years of continuous past employment. You can use up to four of those years of your past employment with this employer toward meeting the Plan’s five-year vesting rule. This means that once you enter the Plan, you only need to complete one more year of vesting service to satisfy the Plan’s five-year vesting rule.

Example 2: Or let’s say you are age 53 when your new group first enters the Plan and you have four years of continuous past employment. Based on the chart, you can count up to two of those years toward meeting the Plan’s five-year vesting rule. So you only need to complete three more years of vesting service after you enter the Plan to satisfy the Plan’s five-year vesting rule.

Remember, 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) unless the Plan’s previous ten-year vesting rule applies to you.

Military Service

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 your 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 (see exceptions that follow), and
• You must receive an honorable discharge or its equivalent under U.S. military law.

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.

If you qualify to have your period of military service counted as covered employment, your Area Administrative Office credits you with covered hours using the formula explained below (unless your employer and local union have agreed on a different formula that credits you with a greater number of covered hours).

The formula looks to the average number of covered hours per month you earned with your covered employer in the 12 months just before you left covered employment with that employer to enter military service. You are then credited with the same number of covered hours per month during the period starting with the date you left covered employment with that employer to enter military service until the date you returned to covered employment with that same employer after leaving military service.

Exceptions
1. If you die or become totally and permanently disabled while in military service, the requirement that you return to covered employment is waived.

2. If you work in an industry (such as the construction or convention trades) where you are required to obtain work through a hiring hall, the hiring hall is considered to be your employer under these rules.

If you have questions about your pension rights under federal veterans laws, call your Area Administrative Office. You can also find information on the internet by searching USERRA the Law.

About Your Personal Benefit Statement

Your Personal Benefit Statement shows your vesting status. If you are not vested, it shows the number of vesting years as of the previous calendar year. Your statement is mailed to you in June if you worked at least 250 covered hours in the previous calendar year and have a valid mailing address on file.

When you move, be sure your Area Administrative Office has your new address or you may not get it. Click here to download and print a Change of Address Form. Be sure to read your statement carefully and keep it with past copies in a safe place.

Be sure to read your statement carefully and keep it with past copies in a safe place. Click here for an example that shows how to read your Personal Benefit Statement.

Click here for questions and answers about Participation & Vesting.

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