Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 693 Pension Plan

Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 693 Pension Plan

Launched in 1969, the Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 693 Defined Benefit Pension Plan was a Taft-Hartley multiemployer plan jointly sponsored by UA Local 693 and participating mechanical contractors in the Vermont building trades. It provided retirement, disability and death benefits to eligible union members working under collectively bargained contribution agreements. The plan operated from South Burlington, Vermont, for its entire lifespan. The fund's investment strategy followed a fund-of-funds structure typical of smaller Taft-Hartley plans: the board hired external managers to handle discrete asset-class mandates rather than building an internal investment team. Public-plan records show the trustees maintained exposure across domestic and international equities, fixed income, and real estate through institutional commingled vehicles. The fund did not pursue direct investing or co-investments, reflecting its modest scale — Altss estimates total assets at roughly $31M at the time of the transition. Board governance rested with trustees appointed jointly by the union and the Mechanical Contractors Association of America's Vermont chapter. The plan's benefit administration ran through the UA Local 693 benefits office. On January 1, 2024, the Local 693 pension plan merged into the United Association's national pension fund, a long-running consolidation trend within the UA that pools smaller local plans to reduce administrative expense, strengthen bargaining power with asset managers, and improve funded status portability for members who work across jurisdictions. What distinguished this fund structurally was its status as a local-union plan inside a national union that has been systematically absorbing such plans. The merger into the United Association National Pension Fund means the Local 693 plan no longer operates as a standalone allocator. All assets, liabilities and benefit obligations transferred to the successor entity, which now invests at a materially larger pool size alongside dozens of other absorbed local UA plans.