Non-Parties to CBA Needn’t Contribute to Benefit Fund

A collective bargaining agreement between a corporation and a local operating engineers union didn’t impose a duty on the corporation or its three nonunion affiliates to contribute to the affiliates’ employee benefit funds, the Eighth Circuit said Friday.

Three benefit funds’ trustees sued Charps Welding & Fabricating Inc. and its affiliates for allegedly breaching the agreement by not contributing to the funds for the affiliates’ work, in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

But the agreement didn’t extend to work performed by the affiliates because they weren’t parties to it, and because they weren’t the corporation’s alter egos ...