Local No. 1 Pension Trust Fund

Local No. 1 Pension Trust Fund

The Local No. 1 Pension Trust Fund was established through collective bargaining by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1 to provide monthly retirement and disability benefits. Its participant base historically includes janitorial staff, security officers, and elevator operators working in commercial office buildings and Chicago Public Schools, with approximately 6,000 retirees and beneficiaries relying on the fund's payouts. The fund maintains a diversified investment portfolio spanning public equities, fixed income, and real estate assets. Its direct real estate holdings include a residential property in Calumet City and Illinois. The pension trust operates alongside two sister benefit funds — the Local No. 1 Health Fund and the Local No. 1 Training Fund — which share overlapping administrative resources and office space, suggesting a coordinated cost-sharing structure under the broader SEIU Local 1 benefits umbrella. The fund is governed by a board of trustees that includes union leadership. Genie Kastrup, President of SEIU Local 1, and Thomas Balanoff, former President of SEIU Local 1, serve as trustees overseeing investment policy and benefit administration. The fund's headquarters is located in Downers Grove, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, where it administers monthly benefit distributions to its participant pool. As a Taft-Hartley multi-employer pension plan, the fund operates under a joint labor-management governance structure — a structural differentiator from single-employer corporate plans. This architecture gives both the union and contributing employers a fiduciary seat at the table, and it ties the fund's health directly to the collective bargaining strength and employment levels of SEIU Local 1's membership base.