Bricklayers' Pension Fund Marks 40th Anniversary, Two Billion Dollars in Benefits Paid

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Joint Statement by James Boland, President of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (BAC) and Labor Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Bricklayers & Trowel Trades International Pension Fund (IPF) and Eugene George, President of GA Masonry (Breslau, ON) and Management Co-Chair of the Bricklayers & Trowel Trades International Pension Fund:

"Today marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of the International Pension Fund (IPF) – the defined benefit plan that covers more than 92% of BAC members throughout the U.S. and helps ensure the retirement security of more than 24,000 current pensioners. IPF enters its fifth decade on the heels of another significant milestone, achieved last month when the Fund's total benefits paid reached two billion dollars. To date, IPF has experienced an impressive 21% jump in the number of payees and a 47% increase in benefits paid since March 2003 when total benefits paid reached one billion dollars. Despite the recent economic downturn and historically high levels of unemployment in the construction industry, the IPF Board of Trustees remains as strongly committed as ever to providing defined benefits to IPF participants and their families through efficient administration and fiduciarily responsible investments, including job-producing real estate funds, and working to achieve long term, comprehensive pension funding reform for multiemployer funds. In the proudest tradition of labor-management cooperation, the Board looks forward to many more decades of service by IPF to BAC participants."

The International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the oldest continuous union in North America and represents roughly 90,000 skilled masonry-trowel trades craftworkers in the United States and Canada, including bricklayers, tile setters, cement masons, plasterers, stone masons, marble masons, restoration workers, and terrazzo and mosaic workers.

SOURCE International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers