Fringe Benefits Bond - Oregon Washington Carpenters Employers Trust Fund in Oregon

Brief Summary

When the carpenters trust funds ask for a bond, union dispatch and your next job can hinge on it. A surety bond gives the trustees the security they want for your hourly fringe contributions without tying up your own cash, so you can keep carpenters on the job while the paperwork goes to the fund office.

Contractors signed to the Oregon and Southwest Washington carpenter master labor agreement pay hourly contributions into the Oregon-Washington Carpenters-Employers Health and Welfare and Pension Trust Funds, plus the carpenters vacation and training trust funds. A fringe benefits bond guarantees those contributions to the trustees. The amount and form come from the trust fund office, so confirm both with them before the bond is issued.

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How to Apply for a Fringe Benefits Bond:

• Ask the trust fund office for the required bond amount, the obligee name and whether they use their own bond form.
• Have your company's legal name and employer account details exactly as the fund office has them.
• Complete the bond application and review the quoted premium.
• Pay the premium and receive the executed bond.
• Deliver the original bond to the trust fund office and keep a copy with your payroll records.

Detailed Information About the Oregon Fringe Benefits Bond:

Who has to post this bond

The bond is posted by an employer that contributes to the Oregon-Washington carpenters trust funds and has been asked by the fund office to secure its contributions. The carpenter master labor agreement between the Oregon-Columbia Chapter of the Associated General Contractors and the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters covers all of Oregon plus Klickitat, Skamania, Clark, Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties and parts of Pacific County in Washington. Under it, employers pay set amounts per compensable hour into the Oregon-Washington Carpenters-Employers Health and Welfare Trust Fund and Pension Trust Fund, and into the carpenters vacation and training trust funds.

How the amount is set

This is not a state license bond with a figure in a statute. The obligee is the board of trustees of the trust funds, and the fund office sets the amount and supplies or approves the bond form. Get the required amount and the exact obligee wording from the fund office before the bond is written.

What the bond guarantees

The bond promises the trustees that you will pay the fringe benefit contributions you owe under the labor agreement and the trust agreements. If contributions go unpaid, the trustees can claim against the bond, and the surety will look to you to repay what it pays out.

Why the funds take late contributions seriously

Federal law at 29 U.S.C. 1145 requires every employer obligated under a plan or collective bargaining agreement to make its contributions on the plan's terms. When a fund wins a collection suit, 29 U.S.C. 1132(g)(2) directs the court to award the unpaid contributions, interest, liquidated damages under the plan of up to 20 percent or a further amount of interest, whichever is greater, and attorney fees and costs. The labor agreement also makes it a violation for the union to let carpenters work for an employer who fails, after notice, to pay into the health and welfare or pension funds.

Eligibility and Requirements for a Oregon Fringe Benefits Bond:

• Trustees of the Oregon-Washington carpenters trust funds named as obligee, worded the way the fund office directs.
• Bond amount set by the fund office.
• A surety acceptable to the trustees.
• Employer name on the bond matching the signatory name on file with the fund office.
• Owner and company credit review, which drives the premium the surety quotes.

Oregon Fringe Benefits Bond FAQs:

Official and Additional Resources for the Oregon Fringe Benefits Bond: