Plumbers Welfare Fund

The Plumbers Welfare Fund is a health and welfare benefit plan, not an investment vehicle. Investment decisions for the associated retirement assets are made through the Plumbers' Pension Fund and Retirement Savings Fund, which invest via common or collective trusts overseen by the Board of Trustees. Co-Chairman James F. Coyne and Fund Administrator Joseph Ohm manage the administrative operations of the funds.

Both are multi-employer Taft-Hartley funds sponsored by Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local Union 130 UA and administered from the same office at 1340 West Washington Boulevard. The Welfare Fund provides health benefits, while the Pension Fund is a defined benefit plan and the Retirement Savings Fund is a defined contribution annuity plan. They share leadership and administrative infrastructure but are legally separate trusts.

No. The Welfare Fund is a health and welfare benefits trust. Its assets are used solely to pay medical, dental, vision, hearing, prescription drug and HRA claims for participants and their dependents. The investment portfolios sit inside the Plumbers' Pension Fund and the Retirement Savings Fund, which invest in collective trusts.

The Local 130 Funds maintain several directly owned properties. The headquarters at 1340 West Washington Boulevard in Chicago houses the Stephen M. Bailey Auditorium. A Union Wellness & Vision Center operates at 15900 W. 127th Street in Lemont, Illinois. A mixed-use property is held at 4822 W. Harrison Street in Chicago.

The fund is sponsored by Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local Union 130 UA, one of the largest straight-line plumbing locals in the United Association, which represents over 350,000 building tradesmen across the United States and Canada. Local 130 itself has more than 6,000 members. The fund also collaborates through the Plumbing Council of Chicagoland.

James F. Coyne is the Business Manager of Plumbers Local 130 and serves as Co-Chairman of the Plumbers Welfare Fund. In this dual role, he represents the union's interests on the Board of Trustees, which governs the fund alongside employer trustees appointed by the contributing contractors.

Contributions flow from hundreds of signatory plumbing contractors in the Chicago area under collective bargaining agreements. Employers contribute a negotiated hourly amount per covered employee. Those contributions are pooled in the trust and used exclusively to fund participant benefits and reasonable administrative expenses.