• All CWA/CenturyLink Retirees, Update on Open Enrollment

November 17, 2011

An update concerning Open Enrollment has come out this week to CenturyLink retirees. Our Post 1990 premiums have "greatly increased". CWA is already looking into this and we have attached letters from District 7 with the details. In these letters it will let us know what CenturyLink did and what CWA is doing to correct it.

All the details and explanation will be in the letters so I will not go into detail at this time. Just another reason as CWA retirees we need to organize and grow our chapters; we need to mobilize our members and we need to be ready for anything from this company.

But for now, as retirees, we need to be focusing on growing our retiree chapters and fighting this employer. I can not do it alone and you can not do it alone. That is why we are forming CWA Retiree Chapters across the 14 states of District 7 to keep our retirees informed with the actual facts from CWA. We want all CWA retirees to belong and support District 7 retirees. Get the facts right from CWA. Many of your retiree chapters are having meetings this month and will be discussing this more as we get more information so check with them for the date and time.

Next year will be an important time for active members and retirees. Not only are states trying to strip us of our bargaining rights, but companies out East like Verizon East are trying to take away everything we bargained for over the last 50 years.

We need you help. Attached are the letters concerning the 2012 Qwest Retiree Premiums. As soon as I receive additional letters from District 7, I will email them to retirees I have emails for. You can pass this onto retirees in case I do not have their email addresses.

In Unity,

Judy Fries
President, Retired Members Council
D-7
319-365-3719
judyfries1@msn.com

Attachments - Update on Open Enrollment 2012

  Change from United Health Care to Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield

  2012 Qwest Retiree Premiums

  Follow-up 2012 Qwest Retiree Premiums

• CenturyLink/Qwest: Workers Organizing to Meet Challenges of Merger

December 1, 2010

Good paying jobs, strong contracts, and access to the jobs of the future are big issues for CWAers at CenturyLink, the company formed by the acquisition between CenturyLink and Qwest Communications.

There are about 14,000 CWA-represented workers at Qwest and 3,700 at Century Link. About 20,000 Century Link workers have no union representation. The CWA-represented CenturyLink workers worked for Century Tel and Embarq, formerly the local telephone division of Sprint.

“Organizing is the only way that we are going to protect what we’ve CenturyLink/Qwest: Workers Organizing to Meet Challenges of Merger fought for and to secure a future for CWA members at the company," said CWA Local 4370 President Harry Williamson. Local 4370 in Lorain, Ohio, organized CWA’s first Century Link unit in 1978 and has fought the company’s efforts to outsource jobs.

“Management will try to move as many jobs as it can to the non-union parts of the new company,” said CWA Executive Vice President Annie Hill. “All call center work at Qwest is now done by CWA members. At Century Link, just 10 percent of call center workers have union representation.”

CWAers at Qwest say organizing is critical to maintaining their benefits following the merger. “Maintaining our health care is a huge issue with members,” said Local 7906 President Ken Saether, whose local represents 400 workers at Qwest and 75 at CenturyLink in Oregon. Management must negotiate changes in health care and other benefits at Qwest. That’s not the case at CenturyLink.

“The company will do everything in its power to try to dilute our heavily-organized Qwest bargaining units through attrition, or by transferring jobs to non-union parts of the new company,” said Saether. “That’s why organizing at CenturyLink is so important.”

“Building our union’s strength at the new company is the only way to increase our leverage at the bargaining table so that we protect what we have,” Hill said.
 

• Alcatel-Lucent Breakthroughs

• Flyer and Factsheet Concerning the CenturyLink-Qwest Merger 

• Century Link Merger Information

• Overview of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010

A presentation for CWA leaders on the benefits of health care reform for CWA members and retirees.  

• Health Care Reform and Retirees

There's some confusion out there regarding health care reform and retiree prescription drug coverage. It's important to get the facts, not the spin that some people are trying to sell.

A number of companies, including some big CWA employers like AT&T, have taken charges on their financial reports for the end of March. These employers were accounting for the change in the subsidies they've received since 2003 to provide prescription drug coverage. Employers still will receive the subsidy, but now will pay taxes on it. It doesn't change our retiree health care coverage.

There are a lot of good things for retirees in health care reform. Read about those benefits here.

• Article From Al Mumm, President, Retiree Chapter 7290 Concerning Lucent  

• Steps to Follow In The Death of a US West/Qwest Retiree

Always a good idea to do ahead of time and keep pertinent information in an important place.  Verify your beneficiaries for life insurance with Prudential Life Insurance Company.  The number is 1-800-778-3827.  Our Life Insurance benefit is $10,000.

• Deferred Vested Pension Qwest

This question isn't a contract question; it's what the pension plan said at the time employee left.  When an occupational employee leaves the company and is not eligible for a pension, they are eligible for a reduced deferred vested pension if they are vested.

• START OF CWA RETIREE COMMITTEE FOR DISTRICT 7