International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM)

International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers (IAM)

The International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers was chartered in 1888 as a craft union for machinists in Atlanta, Georgia. Over 135 years, it grew into one of the largest industrial unions in the United States, representing roughly 600,000 active and retired members across aerospace, defense, manufacturing, and air transport. The IAM National Pension Fund, the union's primary retirement vehicle, is a Taft-Hartley multiemployer plan funded by contributions from employers including Boeing, United Airlines, Spirit AeroSystems, and Lockheed Martin under collective bargaining agreements. The pension fund's investment office, based in Washington, DC, manages the retirement assets of IAM members with a posture that has evolved beyond traditional fixed-income allocations into a private-markets-driven portfolio. The fund's strategy is anchored in direct buyout exposure, with allocations spanning private equity, real estate, and private credit. Unlike many multiemployer plans that rely almost exclusively on fund-of-funds arrangements, the IAM National Pension Fund has built the capability to co-invest directly alongside general partners in middle-market buyout transactions. Confirmed portfolio exposures include commercial real estate assets such as the fund's own office building at 99 M Street, SE in Washington, DC, and the William W. Winpisinger Education and Technology Center in Hollywood, Maryland. The IAM also holds an unusual asset in intellectual property: the union owns the music catalog of Katy Perry, a residual of a litigation settlement that transferred pop-music royalties to the pension portfolio. The investment team participates actively in the National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans, benchmarking its fiduciary practices against the largest multiemployer funds in the country. The IAM operates its headquarters from 9000 Machinists Place in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, with the pension fund office situated in a dedicated downtown Washington, DC location. The union's executive leadership — International President Brian Bryant and General Secretary-Treasurer Dora Cervantes — serves as named fiduciaries for the pension fund. Adjacent union-affiliated entities include the IAM Scholarship Fund, the Machinists Disaster Relief Fund, and Guide Dogs of America | Tender Loving Canines, a nonprofit that provides service animals and which functions as a separate charitable structure from the pension plan. In 2024, the IAM engaged in highly publicized strikes at Boeing, securing a 38% wage increase over four years — a contract that directly impacts the scale of future employer contributions flowing into the National Pension Fund. The fund's structural differentiator is its dual identity: it is a deeply traditional multiemployer plan that behaves like a direct-investment office. While most Taft-Hartley funds outsource nearly all discretionary private-markets allocations, the IAM National Pension Fund retains significant co-investment discretion, blending union capital with external general-partner deal flow. This hybrid model links a blue-collar retirement pool to institutional private-equity economics without intermediating through layers of fund-of-funds fees, a posture that distinguishes it within the union-pension landscape.