A solid pension you can count on!
Alberta’s Carpenters have the security of a fully-funded, financially healthy pension plan that provides a monthly pension at retirement that is based on your total hours of covered employment when you retire.
On top of that, 100% of the contributions to our pension plan are made by your employer! There are no deductions from your pay for the pension plan.
Unlike Group RRSP benefits provided by some employers, this pension provides a predictable benefit based on your covered hours and the pension rate in effect. It is NOT solely dependent on the ups and downs of volatile markets. This can provide a good balance with other retirement savings plans (such as a personal RRSP).
Many employers are choosing not to offer defined benefit plans because they cost more and can represent a greater financial risk, especially during market downturns. The Alberta Carpenters can afford such a plan because we’ve managed our pension fund extremely well over the years. With professional management and under the guidance of its trustees, it has grown to more than $300 million.
Having a defined benefit plan could make a huge difference to the lifestyle you and your spouse enjoy once you stop working.
Hours-earned contributions!
In addition to contributing toward your pension plan for each hour that you work, our industrial contract requires our employers to make what’s called ‘hours-earned’ contributions when our members work overtime. That means your employer also pays more pension contributions per overtime hour (time-and-a-half, or double time!), which in turn increases your pension.
The Bottom Line: Predictability!
The bottom line is that, as a union member, you and your spouse have the security of knowing exactly how much your pension will pay you every month after you retire.
The pension provided by the union plan will be more predictable than the benefit provided by a typical RRSP-type savings plan. It also won’t require you to make investment decisions and in most cases will provide a higher pension for a much lower cost over the long term than an employer’s Group RRSP plan.
Please note:
Employers are required to make contributions for all hours of covered employment, but members must be initiated by the union, and have completed a pension application card, before they will get credit for the hours related to the employer contributions. Membership starts on the first of the month following this initiation and receipt of application.
The information provided here is intended only as a brief summary of some of the pension plan’s key features. In the case of any misunderstanding or discrepancy between this description and the official plan documents, the information in the plan documents will prevail.
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