President’s Message – September 2021
Save Your Paystubs and Track Your Benefits
Brothers and sisters,
Your local union has many benefits for you and your family. The manner in how you accrue these benefits is very important. In our employment with our many contractors and whichever contractor you work for, there is a system in place to receive and record your individual hours and payment from our contractors. All our contractors are “dialed in” on how the reporting is done and by what date. Sometimes a miss reporting can occur and there are safeguards in place to help repair and remedy these mishaps.
Save your paystubs! If you have the wherewithal to save them for your entire career, that would be ideal. However, at least save them for the whole year, just in case.
As I stated, the contractors report everyone’s hours monthly and our Trust offices record those hours and purchase the benefits. Every three months, a quarterly report is sent to all our members informing them how many hours they have recorded on their behalf and from whom the hours are received.
Sometimes a member may have taken some time off or even forgotten. Sometimes a contractor’s payroll personnel makes mistakes in reporting those hours. The worst possibility is that a contractor purposefully misreported your hours. That’s why it’s important to keep your paystubs and to review the quarterly statement sent to you. If you double check your paystub hours to the statement hours, everything should be right. If the hours don’t match up, then call the Trust offices and talk to them about what appears to be wrong. They will ask you for your paystubs (and copy them) for validation and go about recovering those missed hours.
Please take the time to look at your statements. If you don’t understand, call the Trust office. That’s what they’re there for. It’s better to be calm and do the research than to outright accuse the employer of any wrongdoing. Understanding how the monies are recovered and how the benefits are paid for is a lot to know. It’s up to you to take the time to learn it!
As always, if you have questions about your union just ask one of our agents. Otherwise, you are welcome to call our office and I’m happy to talk to you as well.
Thank you for the opportunity to serve you.
Respectfully,
Gaylord “Rusty” Roten
President/Senior Assistant Business Manager
