One of the great advantages of being a union member in the CSCRC is that your union has a system dedicated to being sure that you and your family have the best benefits, possible – pension, health, and training. We fund these benefits through our union collective bargaining agreements, receiving contributions from signatory employers.
Recently, work has been done to merge UBC retirement and benefit funds in the Southern District. These mergers lower administrative costs, give you more service, and provide better returns on our investments.
The UBC Southern District now has one health fund, one defined contribution fund, and two pension funds.
Eight defined contribution funds were merged to form the Southern District UBC Defined Contribution Fund. This action alone is providing more than $3.3 million per year in fee savings. At a 7% interest rate over 20 years, that $3.3 million translates into almost $13 million going back into participants’ accounts.
In addition, all hours worked now earn many more pension credits than before. And we were able to help our areas with the weakest defined benefit funds. We are all strong now!
Our construction members are now part of the Southern District UBC Health Trust, whose chair is our EST Kavin Griffin. We were able to do this merger with no disruption to your health care and have built a stronger fund. Our fund is in excellent financial condition and can weather any storm.
Finally, we have merged all the training funds in the Southern District into one. The merged fund can offer more and better training to journey-level members as well as registered apprentices.
You can be sure that the work done on these funds in your interest will continue.