Plumbers & Pipefitters, Local #274

A board of trustees controls all investment decisions, with seats split evenly between union-appointed representatives and employer-appointed trustees from the Mechanical Contractors Association. Edward F. Driscoll, as Business Manager and Financial Secretary-Treasurer, and Mark Zaremba, as President, are the primary union-side named fiduciaries on public records. This joint governance structure is standard for multiemployer Taft-Hartley plans and requires consensus between labor and contributing contractors for any asset allocation changes.

Local 274's pension fund invests almost exclusively through buyout fund commitments, according to available strategy disclosures. There is no indication of direct co-investment activity, separate accounts, or manager-of-managers structures. This concentrated approach to private equity is a high-conviction tilt that prioritizes the illiquidity premium and long-duration return profiles associated with traditional leveraged buyout strategies.

The fund's assets are estimated at approximately $176 million. It operates from the Local 274 Union Hall and Training Center at 205 Jefferson Road in Parsippany, New Jersey, and covers union plumbers and pipefitters across northern New Jersey. The plan does not publicly disclose its full financial statements or annual actuarial valuations.

Local 274 maintains several affiliated trusts including the Journeymen of Plumbing and Pipefitting Ind Welfare Fund, the Pipefitters Education Fund, and the Pipefitters Local 274 Scholarship Trust. These are structurally separate from the pension fund with distinct fiduciary responsibilities, though governance overlaps through shared union leadership. The welfare fund covers health and disability benefits, while the education and scholarship trusts fund apprenticeship training.

Based on available strategy disclosures, Local 274 commits to buyout funds rather than engaging in direct co-investments or direct deals. There is no public record of the fund participating in SPVs, club deals, or direct operating company investments. This fund-commitment-only posture is typical for midsize Taft-Hartley plans that lack the internal investment staff to underwrite direct transactions.

A Taft-Hartley plan is a jointly trusteed multiemployer pension fund governed by the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947. For Local 274, this means half the trustees are appointed by the union and half by participating employers through the Mechanical Contractors Association. All investment policy decisions require approval from both sides, creating a structural negotiation dynamic that can slow deployment but provides built-in stakeholder alignment not present in single-sponsor pension plans.

Available disclosures indicate the fund's strategy concentrates entirely on buyout commitments with no allocation to venture capital, growth equity, public equities, fixed income, real estate, infrastructure, or hedge funds as separate sleeves. This effectively means Local 274 avoids early-stage, late-stage venture, and liquid-market strategies entirely, though the fund may gain incidental exposure through the portfolio companies held by its buyout GPs.