Member Benefits

Union membership protects you and your family, on the job and at home.

Local 235 members and their families are covered by a comprehensive benefit package: medical, dental and vision care, short- and long-term disability, life insurance, prescription drug coverage, a defined pension plan, and access to ongoing training and certification.

None of it comes off your cheque as an optional extra. Benefits in the unionized sheet metal and roofing trades are negotiated into the collective agreement as employer contributions on every hour you work, remitted to jointly trusteed funds. That is the difference members notice most when they come over from a non-union shop: the coverage follows the member, not the employer, so changing jobs inside the union does not restart your benefits.

Health and welfare covers the everyday things a family runs into. Prescription drugs, dental work, vision, paramedical practitioners such as physiotherapy and massage, and coverage for a spouse and dependent children. Disability coverage is the part nobody thinks about until they need it: an injury or an illness that keeps you off the tools does not have to become a financial emergency as well.

Life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment coverage sit alongside it. This is a trade that works at height, in confined spaces and around energized equipment, and the plan is built with that in mind.

The pension is the long game. Contributions are made for you on every hour worked, they accumulate across your whole career in the trade, and reciprocal arrangements between SMART locals mean hours you work in another local's jurisdiction can generally be credited back. An apprentice who starts at twenty and stays in the trade retires with a pension a non-union counterpart in the same shop simply does not have.

Eligibility, waiting periods and the way hours carry you through a slow stretch are set by the plan documents and change as agreements are renegotiated, so this page deliberately does not print thresholds or dollar figures. Your current coverage, your hours and your claims history are all in the Union Benefits member portal below.

If something is not showing the way you expect, or you are about to have a baby, get married, change dependants or retire, call the hall before you assume. Most benefit problems members bring to the office are enrolment paperwork that never got updated, and they are far easier to fix in the same month they happen.