Introduction

This is a retirement plan that allows you to build up a significant balance that you can withdraw at retirement. In conjunction with your defined benefit plan, Social Security, and personal savings and assets, this balance can be a crucial help in achieving a secure retirement.

Unlike the defined BENEFIT Plan which is a traditional pension plan, your defined CONTRIBUTION plan accumulates your retirement benefit within an individual account--very similar to a 401k plan. All employer contributions made on your behalf are allocated to this individual account. The account is also allocated a proportional amount of investment gains or losses, so that it is possible for your individual account balance to decrease during periods when investment returns are negative.

Investments Managed by Prudent Experts

In the short term, you may experience market fluctuations in your account balance, but historically, over longer periods of time such as five years or more, the Plan has returned positive investment gains. Unlike a typical 401k account, you do not direct the investments of your individual account. Instead, the Plan has hired professional investment managers and consultants to advise on investing the aggregate of individual accounts. Professional investment management of the total Plan assets helps to achieve some administrative savings, and helps see to it that the assets are invested in such a way as to increase the likelihood of obtaining targeted investment gains while minimizing as much as possible the exposure to investment risk.

Vesting and
Becoming a Participant

In order to become vested (this means a irrevocable right) to your individual account balance, you must be a Covered Employee, and earn a total of 300 Covered Hours within two consecutive Plan Years. At that point, you become a vested participant in the Plan.

Ways to Withdraw your Balance

You can withdraw your account balance at normal retirement (age 65) or at early retirement, or if you become permanently and totally disabled, or if you cease working in the electrical industry within the jurisdiction covered by the participating locals for at least a year. If you die before withdrawing your individual account balance, your spouse or other properly designated beneficiary will receive your account balance.

Loans

Loans for certain specified purposes are available to you under this Plan.