Atlanta-based United Parcel Service of America Inc. and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in Washington would create a joint UPS-Teamster pension plan “to cover full-time UPS employees who currently obtain their pension benefits from” the $20.7 billion Teamsters Central States, Southeast & Southwest Areas Pension Fund, based in Rosemont, Illinois, according to a Teamsters statement.

“The current proposal would create a plan jointly administered by UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters with an equal number of Teamster-appointed and company trustees,” the statement says.

Van Skillman, president and co-founder of the Association of Parcel Workers of America, a new union undertaking a campaign to replace the Teamsters as the UPS labor representative, said he understands the UPS proposal would cover all 21 of the multiemployer Teamster jointly trusteed plans covering UPS employees, including the $30.2 billion Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust Fund in Seattle and the $3.4 billion New England Teamsters and Trucking Industry Pension Fund in Burlington, Massachusetts.

UPS would pay $4 billion in withdrawal liability to the Teamsters fund, Skillman said.

UPS proposed in 1997 contract negotiations that workers could withdraw from Teamster plans and UPS would create a new pension plan for its Teamster employees, but the Teamsters opposed the idea and UPS didn’t pursue it, UPS spokesman Norman Black said in an interview in February.

Black said UPS officials wouldn’t comment about the negotiations. Mark Angerame, CFO of the Central States fund, didn’t return a call for comment. Teamsters press secretary Galen Munroe said the union would not comment beyond its statement.

Filed by Pensions & Investments, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.