non-union plan but the owners are union too

[Santo Gold]

A small company (15 employees) has all union employees (all CBA). The CBA provised retirement benefits for all individuals through a larger, multi-ER plan. This includes the 2 owners, who are also in the union and participate in this union plan.

Can the owners still establish a separate retirement plan for themselves? If they craft the eligible class of employees to exclude all CBA employees, except for owners, that would work in the document. In fact, since they are owners and not really employees, we could probably leave it as simply excluding all CBA employees.

But would this work in reality? Since the rank and file can be statutorily excluded, can we play mix and match to bring make the 2 owners eligible and not have to worry that we are not bringing in any of the rank and file?

Thanks

[Guest Offender]

Union EEs are statutorily excludable only if the benefits have been collectively bargained. I don't think the union would agree to these two members obtaining this separate benefit. It may be possible to continue their participation in the union and in the multiple-employer union plan, while paying themselves additional, non-union wages, as owners. These non-union wages could then be the subject of a separate plan.