OR sheet metal trust fund bonds.
$150 flat.

What the contribution bond actually guarantees

A shop signatory to the agreement between NWRC of SMART, Local 16 and SMACNA – Oregon & S.W. Washington pays negotiated hourly contributions into jointly trusteed funds on top of wages: the Sheet Metal Workers Local No. 16 Health Care Plan, a Master Retirement Trust split between a defined benefit pension sub-trust and an Individual Account Plan, the Sheet Metal Training Fund run by the joint apprenticeship committee, the local Industry Fund, and the national programs the agreement binds the parties to — the Sheet Metal Workers’ National Pension Fund, the International Training Institute, the National Energy Management Institute Committee, the Sheet Metal Occupational Health Institute Trust and the Industry Fund of the United States. Local 16 covers Oregon and southwest Washington from Portland.

That money is not the contractor’s. Contributions are due by the 15th of the month following the month they were earned and delinquent if not paid in full by the 20th. The trustees may then initiate collection in the name of each trust, and a delinquent employer owes the unpaid contributions plus liquidated damages framed on ERISA § 502(g)(2), which awards unpaid contributions, interest, liquidated damages, attorney fees and costs in a successful collection suit; ERISA § 515 is what obliges the employer to contribute in accordance with the agreement in the first place. The trustees also hold audit rights over vacation pay, dues and fund payments — and if the audit turns up an underpayment, the employer pays the entire cost of the audit. Under the agreement, the union may withdraw every employee from a delinquent employer on seven days’ notice.

The bond is the smaller of the two tiers we write, and the reason it exists is timing: a crew’s health eligibility, pension credit and apprenticeship funding all depend on money that arrives a month after the hours are worked. The agreement’s bonding provisions require an employer to comply with the bonding requirements governing local funds that the local parties negotiate, and with bonding requirements the trustees of the national funds establish; for work taken in another SMART local’s area those provisions cap the bond at three months’ estimated contributions to the local and national funds. If your paperwork calls for $10,000 instead, that bond has its own page. It is not insurance for you: if the surety pays the funds, you repay the surety. Keep it in force for as long as you are signatory, or until the trustees release it.

You need this bond if you are