Iron Workers' Mid-America Pension Plan

Iron Workers' Mid-America Pension Plan

The Iron Workers' Mid-America Pension Plan was established in 1957 to provide retirement benefits to members of affiliated local unions across Illinois and Indiana. Plan Administrator Joseph J. Burke oversees operations from the fund's office in Lansing, Illinois, which also houses the related Iron Workers Mid-America Supplemental Monthly Annuity (SMA) Fund and the Iron Workers Tri-State Welfare Fund. Contributing employers include publicly traded Apogee Enterprises, Inc., and participating locals span ten chapters of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers (AFL-CIO). The plan deploys capital across a broad mandate: confirmed positions include direct ownership of its own office building at 2350 East 170th Street in Lansing, an interest in the AFL-CIO Building Investment Trust, and a commitment to CIM Fund IX, a mixed-use vehicle in Los Angeles. Its strategy spans real estate, buyout, venture capital, growth equity, mezzanine, direct secondaries, and special situations. The fund participates both as a limited partner in commingled vehicles and through direct co-investments, blending a traditional institutional portfolio with an unusually direct operating footprint for a union pension. The plan operates from a single location in Lansing, Illinois, with plan administration shared by Burke, Paul E. Flasch, and Barbara J. Chapin. The fund maintains reciprocal agreements with peer labor plans such as the Central Laborers' Pension, Welfare, and Annuity Funds. As a founding member of the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA), the plan has long signaled alignment with governance best practices in private-market investing. Structurally, the pension is unusual among Taft-Hartley plans in maintaining an in-house venture and co-investment capability rather than relying exclusively on external consultants or fund-of-funds managers. This direct posture, coupled with the backing of a stable multi-employer contribution base, gives the plan a distinctive hybrid profile — part institutional allocator, part direct investor — that few union pension funds replicate.