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In 1998, the Retail Meat and the Retail Clerks Industry Pension Plans merged and became the UFCW Union Pension Plan. UFCW members employed by Overwaitea, who had not been covered previously by the two industry pension plans, entered into the UFCW Union Pension Plan around that same time.
The UFCW Union Pension Plan is a jointly trusteed pension plan. This means that the Plan is managed by Trustees - some appointed by the employers, some by UFCW Local 2000 and some by UFCW Local 1518. There is a Trust Agreement setting out the Trustees' duties and responsibilities. They include ensuring that:
- proper records are maintained;
- the terms of the Plan are administered consistently and in accordance with the law; and
- the Plan funds are invested for the benefit of members and in accordance with the laws regulating pension plan investments.
One of the unique features of the Plan is that it has a number of separate divisions. The pension funds are combined for investment purposes, but a separate accounting for each division is maintained to ensure that the assets of one division are not used to support the benefits of another division. Each division has its own Retirement Committee made up of employer and union appointees. The current divisions of the Plan are as follows:
- Overwaitea Food Group
- Canada Safeway
- Loman Warehousing
- UFCW Local 1518
- UFCW Local 2000
- Tober Enterprise
The Tober Enterprise Division was created on January 1, 1999. If you were employed by Tober Enterprises during 1998, you were at the time, a member of either the Local 1518 or the Local 2000 Division of the Plan. Once the Tober Enterprises Division was created, all of your service and benefits earned to December 31, 1998 were transferred to the new division. Your pension benefit for all of your service will be calculated in accordance with the provisions laid out in this booklet and applicable to the Tober Enterprises Division.
The Retirement Committees make recommendations to the Trustees on such issues as:
- the development of benefit schedules for the divisions
- creation of an investment policy applicable to the division
- subsequent changes to the divisions' investment policies, and
- the development of communication and education programs for division members
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