part time employee excluded from plan

[Gary]

often plans exclude certain classes of employees such as union or hourly, etc.

however, it seems that part time employees and the like cannot be excluded if they meet the service requirement as it would be an illegal way to keep them from joining the plan 1.410(a)-3(e)(1). and if it is an elapsed time service method plan then the part time employee would be required to participate at same time as full time employees.

a plan i reviewed excluded supplemental employees (and they worked a full 40 hour week) for eg. it seems on the same basis such an employee s/ not be excluded for that reason if they would otherwise be included in plan.

this would have effect of increasing permitted max service condition.

so at first blush i disagree w/ the exclusion of such employees.

any comments?

thanks

gary

[Guest Therese]

What is a 'supplemental employee'?

[mbozek]

An employee can be excluded from a plan based upon job classification. However, an employee cannot be excluded because of status as a part time employee if the employee completes 1000 hours in a plan year.

[Guest Therese]

Right, but if 'supplemental' means 'temporary' I would have a problem with excluding them as a class (assuming they have a year of service and are not leased).

[mbozek]

Supplemental is too ambigious a term to use to classify employees. It is not much different than temporary.

[Gary]

they do not specify exactly what supplemental employee is. it does seem to be like a temporary employee.

the person i believe would work a few months than be off for a while and work again, etc. while a supp employee.

the plan is an elapsed time plan, so it would seem that it doesn't matter if person worked 1000 hours during this period.

gary