Message from the Board of Trustees
For more than half a century, Central States Pension Fund has blazed a trail to retirement security for over 670,000 Teamsters and their family members and revolutionized the pension world of American workers.
Established in 1955 to provide lifetime monthly retirement benefits to Teamsters in the trucking industry, Central States Pension Fund has paid nearly $87 billion in lifetime retirement benefits.
To look at this success from a historical perspective, Central States was the first of what would be over 80 different Teamster multi-employer pension plans that were established in the mid-1950s after the formation of the Taft-Hartley Act. The union and employer leaders of that era had the foresight to know that Social Security alone was not going to be sufficient to provide a secure income after retirement. The creation of Central States Pension Fund was paramount to the successful growth of the Teamsters Union and unionized employers.
Retirement benefits are funded by employer contributions negotiated to be paid on their behalf for employees working under Teamster collective bargaining agreements.
As union membership in the country grew in the 1960s and 1970s, Central States Pension Fund also grew to over 11,000 employers and 400,000 active participants.
However, in the early 1980s, the combination of a recession, deregulation of the trucking industry by Congress, and changes to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) led to a drop in the number of participating employers in multi-employer plans.
Today, Central States has approximately 1,000 contributing employers representing nearly 35,000 active participants in a variety of industries. These include trucking, car haul, warehouse, construction, food processing, dairy, bakery, and grocery trucking, allowing union members portability in moving to other employers that participate in the Fund.
As of January 1, 2023, Central States is 98% funded and is on course to be fully funded in coming years. Volatility in investments has been taken out of the equation with 100% of Fund assets being placed in investment-grade fixed-income securities. New employers are joining the Fund because they find that by providing a secure retirement program to the next generation of Teamster members, they can more easily retain their skilled employees.
Promises made, promises kept!
Since 1955, Central States Pension Fund has paid retirees and beneficiaries all promised benefits and is on solid ground to be able to keep this promise evermore.
Central States Pension Fund remains a solid retirement investment for our participating employers, active members, and retirees. Central States Pension Fund looks forward to continuing to welcome new employers and participants as we prepare for the next 50+ years.
The Board of Trustees
Executive Director
Thomas C. Nyhan
Employee/Union Trustees
Charles A. Whobrey
Gary Dunham
Trevor Lawrence
Joseph Gronek
Employer Trustees
Gary F. Caldwell
Robert Whitaker
Mark F. Angerame
Richard K. Ellis