Hi,
I'm new to the board and I have a bit of an odd question. I'm dealing with an employer that was a party to a CBA in the past and part of the CBA required contributions for health and welfare to a multi employer trust. The Union unilaterally decertified some years ago, which prompted the Trust to perform an audit. In performing the audit, the trust determined that health and welfare benefits were owed on certain individuals. However, those individuals expressly opted to not receive the health and welfare from the Trust, because they could not afford their employee portion. As a result, these employees received health benefits through the employers non-CBA health insurance plan used for non-union employees. The Trust indicated that employees could refuse benefits, but they needed to file a form to do so. Obviously, these forms were never made available to the employees, nor did the employees know about this form. However, the employees expressly refused the Trust benefits to the employer, and did not want money withheld from their checks for contributions to the trust. The trust is seeking past due contributions from October 2010 through October 2017. The trust admits that no health and welfare benefits were paid to these employees, and it is clear that the trust will never (nor can it ever) provide health and welfare benefits to these individuals pursuant to its own Trust agreement. Anyone aware of any cases where a trust is seeking contributions for unpaid health and welfare benefits where the Trust never paid for the benefits in the first place? I will also note that the trust was not a self insurer in this instance. Pursuant to the CBA, the Trust was to purchase health and welfare insurance for the employees. It was not utilizing a pooled account. Let me know if anyone has any thoughts. Thank you.
