The Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust

Non-Contributory Service Benefit Based on Past Employment

If you first enter the Plan after 1986, you may be eligible for a non-contributory service benefit based on your past employment.

Eligibility
If your first covered hour in the Plan is after 1986 and you qualify for past employment, you may be eligible for a non-contributory service benefit.

Your non-contributory service benefit is based on your total years and months of past employment. Click here to learn about past employment.

If you leave covered employment and rejoin the Plan after 1986 as part of a new bargaining unit, you may also be eligible for a non-contributory service benefit based on your intermediate employment. Click here for more information.

To qualify for a non-contributory service benefit based on past employment, you must meet all of the following conditions:

If you are eligible for a non-contributory service benefit, you need to be familiar with two key terms:

Year of Non-Contributory Service
You are credited with one full year of non-contributory service for each full year of unbroken past employment. (You earn 1/12 of a year of non-contributory service for each full month of unbroken past employment.) You cannot earn more than 10 years of non-contributory service. Also, your total years of non-contributory service cannot be more than twice your total years of contributory service.

Year of Contributory Service
Each calendar year you complete at least 500 covered hours counts as one of your years of contributory service.

How to Calculate Your Non-Contributory Service Benefit
There are two steps to figuring your non-contributory service benefit:

Step 1—Calculate the average amount of basic contributions paid for your covered employment in each of your first five years of contributory service. Contributions for calendar years that begin on or after your 10th anniversary under the Plan cannot be used to calculate your non-contributory service benefit.

Step 2—Take 2.00% of your average annual contributions from Step 1 and multiply the result by your years of non-contributory service. However, you cannot receive credit for more than 10 years of non-contributory service.

Note: If your first covered hour under the Plan is between July 2003 and December 2006, the percentage used to determine your non-contributory service benefit is 1.20% (rather than 2.00%) for covered work performed from July 1, 2003 through December 31, 2006. For covered work performed during calendar year 2007, the accrual rate is 1.65 percent for that period. For covered work performed during calendar year 2008, the benefit percentage went up again. If you have 20 or fewer years of service before 2008, your benefit percentage for 2008 is 2.00% If you have more than 20 years of service before 2008, your benefit percentage for 2008 is 2.65%. Click here for details.
The result from Step 2 is your non-contributory service benefit. Add this amount to your contributory service benefit to determine your total contribution account benefit.

Click here for an example of how a non-contributory service benefit is calculated.

F Y I: Past Employment
Certain work performed before you first become covered by the Plan (called past employment) may count when calculating your retirement benefit. Your unbroken past employment is used to calculate either of the following:

Non-contributory service benefit under the contribution account benefit formula (if your first covered hour is in 1987 or later), or
Past service credits under the five-year average benefit formula (if your first covered hour is before 1987).

Unbroken past employment can also count as years of service when determining your contributory service benefit.

There are two types of past employment. You can qualify for either or both depending on your situation:

Continuous Past Employment
Special Past Employment

Year of Non-Contributory Continuous Past Employment
Continuous past employment is your unbroken employment with an employer before the employer starts making contributions to the Plan for your bargaining unit. To qualify, you must be a member of that bargaining unit when it first becomes covered by the Plan and you cannot have any prior Plan coverage.

You do not qualify for continuous past employment if you are a corporate officer at the time of your first covered hour or earlier.

Special Past Employment
Special past employment is your unbroken employment after age 30 in a bargaining unit represented by a local union affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters within the 13 Western states. You cannot have any break between this employment and your covered employment and you cannot have any prior Plan coverage.

If you are a corporate officer at the time of your first covered hour or earlier, you qualify for special past employment only if that period of past employment was covered by a collective bargaining agreement with a local union affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters within the 13 Western states.

Periods of self-employment (that is, employment as a sole proprietor or a partner) do not qualify as past employment. Your past employment does not count for vesting or protect you from a loss of Plan benefits.

Exception: In some cases, your hours of work for an employer before you first become covered by the Plan may qualify as hours of non-covered employment.