July 2010
SBC/ AT&T
Telephone Concession Case
This is the situation as of July 1, 2010. The judge who heard
and decided Phase l in favor of the employee/retirees passed
away and the case has been transferred to a new judge.
Once that happened, AT&T asked the new judge to reconsider
and reverse the prior judge’s findings. Attorneys for
the plaintiff, of course opposed that request. In April, the
Court stayed all proceedings in the Case, including the trial
that was set for June 2010. Except for a ruling on AT&T’s
request for reconsideration Phase ll of the Case is almost
complete. If and when the judge denies AT&T’s motion
the Case would be ready for trial shortly after that time.
This is a report on the status of a second Case filed
against AT&T Affecting Certain PacBell/ Nevada Bell/Pacific
Telesis Salaried Employees.
This lawsuit, entitled Barnes v. AT&T Pension Benefit
Plan-NonBargained Program, No. 08-04058 MHP (N>D>Ca),
alleges that the pension benefits of certain participants
of the Pacific Telesis Group Cash Balance Plan for Salaried
Employees (The” PTG Pension Plan” of “Plan”)
who were entitled to an Alternative Transition Benefit (“ATB”)
may have been miscalculated if they initially took a lump
sum distribution and then subsequently bridged service after
returning to work for Pacific Telesis (or a subsidiary or
affiliate).
Beginning in 1996 as part of a corporate downsizing Pacific
Bell (“Pac Bell”) and other affiliated companies
began offering an ATB to terminating employees. Under the
PTG Pension Plan if an employee terminated employment at less
than 55 years of age with 20 years of service, the ATB benefit
was subject to a discount to reflect the age and service of
the participant at the time of his or her termination. However,
if an employee who retired after March 31 ,1996, was subsequently
rehired before October 31, 1997, and then worked 5 additional
years, the employee “bridged” his or her service
and was entitled to a “redetermined” ATB calculated
on the basis of the employee’s age and service at the
time of his or her n ext termination.
Plaintiff Barnes alleges that the administrator of the PTG
Pension Plan only provided the “redetermined”
ATB benefit to those rehired employees who elected to receive
an annuity, and did not provide the benefit to rehired employees
who , like himself elected to take a cash out at the first
termination, despite language in the Plan which required that
the “redeterminined” benefit be paid to all rehired
employees who bridged their service, without regard to whether
they elected to take cash out or an annuity at their prior
termination.
This lawsuit is brought on behalf of the following
persons;
Participants of the PTG (Pacific Telesis Group) Pension Plan,
who meet the following requirements:
• Who terminated their employment with a company that
participated in the PTG Pension Plan after March 21, 1996,
• Who were eligible for an ATB, which because they had
not attained the requisite age of years of credited service
subject to an ATB Discount,
• Who were subsequently rehired by a company that participate
in the PTG Pension Plan on or before October 31, 1997, and
worked at least five additional years; and
• Who, either (i) at their next termination, did not
have their ATB adjusted to reflect their age and term of employment
at their next termination of employment or (ii) are still
employed at a Participating Company.
• Beneficiaries of any of the persons described in Group
1.
Additional information can be obtained from:
Cohen, Milstein, Sellers & Toll PLLC
1100 New York Avenue, N.W. Suite 500
Washington D.C. 20005
Their telephone number is 202-4098-4600 and
e-mail is jkolcun@cohenmilstein.com.
On April 2, 2010 the Court granted the Plaintiff’s request
to amend the complaint and to assert allegations on behalf
of a class of other similarly situated persons whose ATB may
have been similarly miscalculated. On April 6, 2010 the amended
complaint was filled. At this time we are waiting for the
Court’s decision.
If you think that you are a member of this class
you should contact the attorneys of record and request a questionnaire.
May
2010
VERY
URGENT NRLN Action Alert
Tell Lawmakers To Help Secure Your Pension
MY PREVIOUS MESSAGE TO YOU ASKED THAT YOU SEND A
CAPWIZ MESSSAGE TO YOUR HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MEMBER WHO
CAN HELP SECURE YOUR PENSION. SO FAR, MANY OF YOU HAVE BEEN
CONTENT TO "LET SOMEBODY ELSE DO IT". PLEASE HELP
BY TAKING ACTION ON BEHALF OF YOURSELF AND ALL OTHER RETIREES.
IF YOU DON'T, IT IS POSSIBLE THAT YOU MAY REGRET IT SOMEDAY.
THE CURRENT STOCK MARKET MELT DOWN COMBINED WITH THE UNETHICAL
TAKING OF ASSETS FROM YOUR PENSION PLAN MAY BE PLACING YOUR
FUTURE AT RISK AND YOU WILL NOT KNOW IT FOR MONTHS. LET'S
STOP COMPANIES LIKE GM, CHRYSLER, ALCATEL-LUCENT, QWEST, AT&T,
DETROIT EDISON AND OTHERS FROM STEALING OUR PENSION SECURITY
BY DEMANDING THAT H.R. 4213 INCLUDES LANGUAGE THAT WILL PROTECT
OUR PENSIONS.
Click Here to access
the NRLN Action Alert labeled ACT NOW TO PROTECT PENSIONS.
Click the "Take Action" button, type in your zip
code and click "GO" to identify your Representative.
Click the "Elected Officials" tab and write down
his or her phone number! Now personalize the letter with your
own comments if you want to. If you have a problem accessing
the Action Alert with the above link, go to www.nrln.org and
click on the "Take Action Now" at the top of the
NRLN website's home page.
SEND YOUR MESSAGE (SEE SAMPLE BELOW) NOW...... ALSO CALL HIM
OR HER OR TELL ANYBODY THAT ANSWERS, THAT YOU SENT A MESSAGE
AND THAT YOU EXPECT ACTION NOT POLITICAL BS...SAY IT LIKE
YOU MEAN IT......MAKE THAT CALL!!!
You can also find your Representative's phone number in the
Congressional Directory on the NRLN website Click
Here.
Nike says it best --- JUST DO IT!
Chuck Gilbert
Click Here for a Sample Letter to
send to your Representative.
PDF Format
April
22, 2010
The Honorable Sander Levin, Acting Chairman
Ways & Means Committee
United States House of Representatives
1236 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-2212
Dear Chairman Levin:
As the President of our respective retiree organizations,
we are writing to urge you to include in H.R. 4213, the House
Ways and Means pension funding relief bill, language that
will protect assets in defined benefit pension plans. The
National Retiree Legislative Network has provided proposed
language to your Ways and Means staff. As representatives
of thousands of your retired Michigan constituents, we believe
that companies who take pension funding relief must be prevented
from using pension assets for non-pension expenses, such as
lump sum severance payments. Since H.R. 4213 is very focused
on asset preservation and the long-term funding security of
defined pension plans, adding our proposal is a very integral
part of what H.R. 4213 seeks to accomplish.
Actions known as “back door reversions” by companies
represent a growing practice to circumvent the Congressional
intent against reverting pension assets for corporate purposes.
In 2009, the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) was very
concerned that General Motors used $2.9 billion in pension
assets to make lump sum severance payments during 2008. The
GM pension plan ended that year with a deficit of $20 billion
based on the PBGC's calculations. The Treasury Department's
bailout loan program to GM included restrictions on GM's ability
to continue to use pension assets for non-pension purposes.
On April 12, 2010, the Government Accountability Office reported
that GM will need to add $12.3 billion to its pension fund
by 2014 and Chrysler will need to add $2.62 billion. If those
figures aren’t met, the government will need to step
in and pay for the pensions of the 956,000 pensioned employees
for which Chrysler and GM are responsible. Surely Congress
does not want to offer funding relief to GM and Chrysler yet
leave the door open for them to simultaneously remove assets,
as GM did in 2008, during the funding relief period?
Delphi's use of the "back door reversions" practice,
similar to GM's, contributed significantly to its pension
plan being severely underfunded and resulted in the takeover
by the PBGC. The use of pension plan assets to pay corporate
restructuring costs is not limited to the auto industry. Research
by the National Retiree Legislative Network has found that
AT&T, Delta Air Lines, Federal Express, Lucent, Qwest
and Verizon are among the other companies who have used “back
door reversions” to circumvent Congressional intent
against reverting pension assets for corporate purposes. Plan
participants later suffered benefit reductions as a result.
It simply doesn’t make sense for Congress to authorize
a funding hiatus without simultaneously closing this "back
door." These "back door reversions" practices
place pension plans at risk to be terminated. These actions
threaten the security of pension plans and the potential is
great that the PBGC might have to take over the plan in the
future.
The NRLN's pension asset protection proposal presents a very
narrowly-focused synergy of corporate financial relief and
pension asset security without any cost to corporations or
taxpayers. Please don't miss the opportunity on pension funding
relief legislation to enhance the financial security of America's
retirees by including pension asset protection.
Sincerely,
Chuck Austin, President
John Christie, President
National Chrysler Retirement Organization General Motors Retirees
Association
Bob
Tompkins, President
Bill Kadereit, President
Detroit
Edison Alliance of Retirees National Retiree Legislative Network
Obama
Medicare Panel Targets Costs, Sparks Bipartisan Backlash
By Brain Faler; Bloomberg ~ Apr 17, 2010
Many Democrats and Republicans agree on one aspect of President
Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul: They despise the
Medicare payment commission the law will create.
The White House overcame objections from allies in Congress,
including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to include provisions
taking away part of Congress’s ability to set Medicare
policies and handing it to a board of outside experts. That
upset lobbyists for doctors, drugmakers and the elderly, as
well as lawmakers, and some are vowing to press for changes.
The board, a priority of White House Budget Director Peter Orszag,
is designed to force spending cuts in the medical insurance
program for the elderly, which serves more than 45 million Americans
and is among the main drivers of the federal deficit. Orszag
called the board’s creation Congress’s “single-
biggest yielding of power to an independent entity since the
creation of the Federal Reserve.”
In an interview, he said it would amount to a “huge change
in how Medicare policy is set -- for the better.”
Orszag and other board backers view it as setting in motion
a sustained effort to rein in Medicare’s costs. Rising
health- care costs are the biggest threat to the government’s
long-term financial standing with spending for Medicare and
Medicaid, which serves the poor, projected to grow by 7 percent
per year over the next decade, according to the Congressional
Budget Office.
Lawmaker Concerns
What concerns lawmakers, though, is the prospect of losing their
say-so in decisions on Medicare’s operation. The board
plan was opposed by members of Congress from across the political
spectrum who rarely find common cause -- such as Republican
Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and Democratic Representative Henry
Waxman of California.
House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee Chairman Pete Stark,
a California Democrat, said the board would have “unprecedented
power to make sweeping changes” through a procedure that
would “virtually lock Congress out of the process of making
changes of Medicare.”
“I certainly do not intend to acquiesce to an independent
body,” said Representative Richard Neal, a Massachusetts
Democrat who sits on the House Ways and Means Committee. “We
will revisit this.”
15 Members
The plan would go beyond the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission,
known as MedPac, created a decade ago to offer Congress non-binding
suggestions on cutting the program. The new board would have
15 members chosen by the administration and confirmed by the
Senate to six-year terms. The appointees must include those
“with national recognition for their expertise in health
finance and economics,” as well as health-care providers
and representatives of consumers and the elderly.
The board is to devise a plan for program cuts if Medicare costs
exceed prescribed levels, with its proposals taking effect unless
Congress and the White House agreed on alternatives that generate
equivalent savings.
Some moves would be off limits for the board. It couldn’t
reduce Medicare benefits or increase premiums. That would leave
Medicare payments to doctors, pharmaceutical firms and insurance
companies such as Humana Inc. participating in the Medicare
Advantage program and nursing homes such as Kindred HealthCare,
Inc. subject to the panel’s scalpel. Also targeted for
payment cuts, beginning in 2020, would be hospitals.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat who sponsored
the proposal, said it’s designed to take Medicare “out
of the hands of lobbyists.” He said the idea ran into
“a lot” of opposition from colleagues, “but
I had the president on my side.”
‘Big Deal’
Former CBO Director Robert Reischauer said the new panel, formally
known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board, is a “big
deal” because it is “establishing an institution
and a process which, with minor modifications, when the going
gets tough, could generate substantial savings.”
He predicted that as lawmakers come under growing pressure to
reduce the federal budget deficit, they will loosen restrictions
on the board and increasingly farm out difficult decisions to
it. “We’re going to get into an environment in which
overall fiscal pressures require reductions in Medicare spending”
and “some members of Congress might be thankful they won’t
have blood on their hands.”
Interest Groups
Interest groups with reservations about the board include the
American Medical Association. In a letter to lawmakers, it called
for “substantial modifications” to what it termed
the board’s “broad discretionary authority to make
radical changes” to Medicare’s operation.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America said
the board’s “overly broad powers” could lead
to “sweeping Medicare changes without action by Congress.”
The AARP is seeking to drop provisions preventing the panel’s
decisions from being challenged in court, said Nora Super, a
lobbyist for the Washington-based advocacy group for the elderly.
Unintended aid from Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts
helped the administration push the plan through Congress. His
victory in a special election forced Democrats to use the legislative
procedure known as reconciliation to approve the health-care
overhaul. And the rules for that process blocked efforts by
House Democrats and others to remove the Medicare pay board
from the larger bill.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Brian Faler in Washington at or bfaler@bloomberg.net
Congratulations
to Bill, Marta and Michael for all of their hard
work that led to this fantastic opportunity to present our legislative
agenda personally to the White House Staff. Staying focused
on our mission to protect Pension and Health Care benefits for
all retirees apparently has resonated with the White House and
members of Congress. Thanks also to all of those that participated
in the September Fly-in and this past January's follow-up visits
by the many NRLN Association members. All the years of hard
work by many dedicated retirees has aided in getting the NRLN
into this position of being invited to state our case.
NRLN Presents Legislative
Agenda to White House Staff
As the result of
a number of NRLN letters sent to the White House, President
Obama's staff charged with crafting and managing health care
reform policy for the Administration invited the NRLN Washington,
DC team to a one-on-one meeting. Marta Bascom, NRLN
Executive Director, and Michael Calabrese, NRLN Legislative
Strategist, met on Thursday, Feb. 17th, with key staff members
to reiterate the NRLN's primary health care legislative priorities.
The NRLN staff placed emphasis on the reimportation of safe,
lower cost prescription drugs; the NRLN's Maintenance of Cost
Payment proposal to protect retirement benefits as currently
embodied in the House health care reform bill, and Medicare
buy-in for retirees ages 55-64 at a cost that will not burden
Medicare, plus other issues important to retirees.
The White House
staff restated President Obama's commitment to comprehensive
health care reform and reviving the conference on the bills
that have been passed by the House and Senate. The NRLN
urged the White House to support the NRLN's efforts on Capitol
Hill to get these proposals passed independently should they
not pass in a comprehensive national health care bill.
Many of the issues of great importance to retirees are not
included in the final, pared-down bills on the Hill and need
to be addressed immediately.
The fact that
the White House invited the NRLN's staff to a meeting demonstrates
that our messages are gaining the attention of government
leaders. The emails and phone calls to Washington, DC
from our Grassroots Network members are an important part
of making the voices of retirees heard. Together, our
efforts will make a positive contribution to retirement security.
Finally, I want
to share with you below the text of a letter that I sent to
Senator Harry Reid, Majority Leader, with a copy to House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on the subject of pension asset protection.
A similar personalized letter was sent to six other leaders
in the Senate. We are closely tracking the pension funding
relief issue in Congress and may need to call on our Grassroots
Network members to send letters and make phone calls to their
elected representatives.
President, National Retiree Legislative Network
The Honorable Harry Reid, Majority Leader
522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington,
DC 20510-2803
It is understandable that a number of Senators would be sympathetic
to the appeals from numerous companies for temporary relief
from pension plan funding requirements due to the steep market
slide in 2008. The National Retiree Legislative Network
(NRLN), which represents the interests of more than 2 million
retirees who have retired from 114 companies and public entities,
recognizes the plight of these companies. We would not
want to force contributions to pension plans that would cause
irreparable harm to the companies, trigger layoffs or result
in companies declaring bankruptcy.
However, pension plan assets currently held in trust should
not be allowed to be used by these same companies to pay for
operating expenses. ERISA should be amended to stop
companies from using pension assets to make severance payments
during a corporate restructuring. These "back door
reversions" represent a widespread practice by companies
to circumvent the Congressional policy against reverting pension
assets for corporate purposes. It simply doesn't make sense
for Congress to authorize a funding hiatus without simultaneously
closing this back door.
To better protect the pensions of retirees and future retirees,
I urge you to include in the Senate's pension funding relief
bill language similar to the provisions that are in Section
111 (pages 65 and 66) of H.R. 3936, the Preserve Benefits
and Jobs Act of 2009, sponsored by Representatives Earl Pomeroy
and Pat Tiberi.
The language in Section 111 relating to a company's ability
to amend its pension plan, in part, states: "No ad hoc amendment to a defined benefit plan
which is a single employer plan which has the effect of increasing
liabilities of the plan by reason of increases in benefits,
establishment of new benefits, changing the rate of benefit
accrual, or changing the rate of which benefits become nonforfeitable
may take effect during the plan year if the adjusted funding
target attainment percentage for such plan year is- ''(I)
less than 120 percent, or ''(II) would be less than 120 percent
taking into account such amendment."
An increasing number of companies have tapped pension assets
to pay for lump sum payments equal to six (6) months or even
twelve (12) months pay to employees who agree to retire within
a specific time window. In 2001 and 2002, a struggling Lucent
Technologies charged $2.2 billion in lump sum "termination
benefits" to its various employee pension plans.
More recently, GM used $2.9 billion in pension assets to make
lump sum severance payments during 2008 - and ended the year
with a $12.4 billion pension deficit ($20 billion by PBGC
calculations). AT&T, Bethlehem Steel, Chrysler,
Consolidated Freightways, Delphi, Delta Air Lines, Federal Express, Polaroid, Qwest,
United Airlines, Verizon and many other corporate plan sponsors
have raided pension assets with impunity and used those assets
to cover their business restructuring expenses.
These back door reversions are not offset by corresponding
reductions to pension liabilities and are gone forever. This
practice places pension plans at risk to be terminated. It
is past time to end this pilfering of defined plan pension
assets. These actions threaten the security of pension
plans and the potential is great that the Pension Benefits
Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) might have to take over the plan in
the future. Furthermore, depleted assets reduce the likelihood
the plan will ever generate surplus assets that can be used
to offset corporate health care costs for retirees or be available
for pension Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs), a benefit
that non-government retirees seldom receive.
The NRLN has researched and written a whitepaper on how companies
are misusing pension plan assets and provides our proposed
amendments to the Pension Protection Act of 2006 to prevent
the abuses. I have attached the Executive Summary from the
whitepaper. If you would like to receive a copy of the
entire whitepaper, please contact Marta Bascom, the NRLN's
Executive Director, on (703) 863-9611 or by email at marta.bascom@linkspace.net .
The Senate has an opportunity for a quid pro quo-companies
receive temporary funding relief and retirees gain the protection
of their pension assets from being used for non-pension expenses.
Please don't miss this opportunity to provide for the financial
security of America's retirees.
NRLN members who are Nevada
residents have retired from AT&T, Alcatel-Lucent, Chrysler,
Delta Air Lines, General Motors, Qwest and NRLN individual
members retired from many other companies will appreciate
your support on this matter.
President, National Retiree Legislative Network
Copy to: Representative Nancy Pelosi, Speaker
U.S. House of
Representatives
NRLN
National Retiree
Legislative Network
Back Door Reversions:
Draining
Pension Assets for Severance and Other
Corporate
Purposes Threatens Retirement Security
Executive Summary
The use of pension assets to make severance payments during
a corporate restructuring is the largest and most widespread
"back door reversion" by which some companies are
seeking to circumvent the Congressional policy against reverting
pension assets for corporate purposes. When pension
funds were used to finance hostile takeovers and the mass
layoffs that typically followed, in 1990 Congress stopped
the practice by imposing a 50 percent excise tax on pension
reversions. But today's "back door reversions"
are more insidious. Although ERISA explicitly prohibits
the use of qualified pension assets for "layoff benefits,"
companies can amend a plan at any time not merely to offer
older workers enhanced early retirement benefits (by awarding
extra years of service credit), but even to offer lump sum
severance payments equal to a year's salary or more as part
of a corporate restructuring.
The 2006 Pension Protection Act tightened up on this practice
somewhat by requiring plan sponsors to pre-fund a plan amendment
that increases benefit liabilities to the extent the plan's
funding level would fall below 80 percent (after taking account
of the new benefit liability). However, as the 2008
stock market meltdown demonstrated, a plan that is only 80
percent funded during a bull market could easily end up below
60 percent funded in a bear market - and in default with the
PBGC if the plan sponsor declares bankruptcy. Moreover,
any significant reduction below full funding not only leaves
all plan participants insecure, it also reduces the ability
of the plan to build a surplus that could be used to grant
cost-of-living adjustments to longtime retirees, whose fixed
monthly benefits erode with inflation, or to offset the cost
of retiree health benefits through a Section 420 transfer.
The trend toward distressed companies using employee pension
assets to pay severance costs - instead of relying on a restructuring
reserve or other corporate assets - is not new to the current
financial crisis. Lucent, United Airlines, AT&T,
Verizon, Qwest, Federal Express, Delta and Delphi
are among the other companies that have tapped pension assets
to pay corporate restructuring costs. Some of these companies
drained pension assets for severance payments as they spiraled
downhill toward bankruptcy and an eventual taxpayer bailout
courtesy of the PBGC. Other companies, left under-funded,
cut other retiree benefits across the board. And some
others, although their plans remained solvent, used up "surplus"
assets that could have benefitted the vast majority of plan
participants if used instead for cost-of-living adjustments
or offset the cost of retiree health care benefits.
In the current crisis, General Motors used pension assets
to pay for billions in severance payments during 2008 - and
ended up with such a dangerous degree of under-funding that
in early 2009 the Treasury Department restricted the practice
as a condition of the federal bailout loan package.
The most effective way for Congress to protect plan participants
(and taxpayers) from unfunded liabilities from severance,
layoff or any other benefit increase is simply to increase
the target funding level threshold required for unfunded benefit
increases and lump sum payouts from the 80 percent level,
currently required under the PPA, to 120 percent. Severance
or other benefit increases to selected individuals that are
not funded should be paid out of the company's operating expenses,
not from the pension trust. This would not limit the
ability of plan sponsors to enhance benefits. What it does
do is require companies to currently fund lump sum payouts
or other benefit increases that would otherwise cause the
plan to become under-funded or worsen its level of under-funding.
Amendments increasing benefits that are collectively bargained
or negotiated between a plan sponsor and bona fide union representatives,
or in the context of a jointly-trusteed Taft-Hartley plan,
should be exempted from this more restrictive funding level.
EMPLOYEES’ PENSIONS,
DISABILITY BENEFITS AND DEATH BENEFITS.
REVISED AMMENDENTS-EFFECTIVE JUNE 1, 1969
ANY EMPLOYEE WHOSE TERM OF EMPLOYMENT HAS BEEN 30 YEARS OR
MORE AND WHO HAS REACHED THE AGE OF FIFTY-FIVE AND WHOSE TERM
OF EMPLOYMENT HAS BEEN 25-OR MORE YEARS, OR ANY FEMALE EMPLOYEE
WHO HAS REACHED THE AGE OF FIFTY YEARS MAY, IF THE CASE IS
APPROVED FOR SUCH TREATMENT, BE RETIRED FROM ACTIVE SERVICE
AND, UPON SUCH RETIREMENT SHALL BE GRANTED A SERVICE PENSION.
ANY EMPLOYEE WHO HAS REACHED THE AGE OF FORTY YEARS AND WHOSE
TERM OF EMPLOYMENT HAS BEEN 15 OR MORE YEARS AND WHO, ON OR
AFTER JUNE 1, 1969, LEAVES THE SERVICE OF THE COMPANY FOR
ANY REASON, SHALL BE ELIGIBLE TO A DEFERRED SERVICE PENSION
COMMENCING WITH THE MONTH IN WHICH HE/SHE ATTAINS AGE SIXTY-FIVE.
DEFERRED VESTED PENSION
ELIGIBILITY: TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT AFTER COMPLETING
AT LEAST 5 YEARS OF VESTING SERVICE, AND BEFORE REACHING ELIGIBILITY
FOR SERVICE PENSION.
BENEFIT: THE MONTHLY BENEFIT PAYABLE AS A STRAIGHT LIFE ANNUITY
STARTING ON THE PARTICIPANT’S NORMAL RETIREMENT AGE
(THE LATTER OF AGE 65 OR THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF PLAN PARTICIPATION,
EQUALS THE PARTICIPANT’S ACCRUED BENEFIT ON THE DATE
OF TERMINATION. THE BENEFIT IS ACTUARIALLY REDUCED IF COMMENCED
PRIOR TO NORMAL RETIREMENT AGE.
DATE PAYMENTS BEGIN: A PARTICIPANT WHO TERMINATES EMPLOYMENT
WITH 5 OR MORE YEARS OF VESTING SERVICE RECEIVES A DEFERRED
VESTED PENSION COMMENCING AT NORMAL RETIREMENT AGE OR AT TERMINATION
OF SERVICE, IF LATER. IF THE PARTICIPANT HAS SUFFICIENT SERVICE
FOR EARLY RETIREMENT ELIGIBILITY, THE DEFERRED VESTED PENSION
MAY COMMENCE EARLY WHEN THE PARTICIPANT LATER MEETS THE AGE
REQUIREMENTS.
SURVIVING SPOUSE’S BENEFIT
BENEFIT: THE ELIGIBLE SPOUSE OF AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT WHO
DIES PRIOR TO NORMAL RETIREMENT AGE AND BEFORE BENEFIT PAYMENTS
COMMENCE IS
ENTITLED TO ONE OF THE FOLLOWING BENEFITS:
IF THE PARTICIPANT DIES WITH FIVE OR MORE YEARS OF VESTING
SERVI CE, HAS LESS THAN 15 YEARS OF PENSION ELIGIBILITY SERVICE,
AND IS NOT ELIGIBLE FOR A SERVICE PENSION, THE ELIGIBLE SPOUSE
RECEIVES A DEFERRED MONTHLY SURVIVOR BENEFIT FOR LIFE BEGINNING
ON THE DATE THE PARTICIPANT WOULD HAVE REACHED EARLIEST ELIGIBLILITY
TO COMMENCE A DEFERRED VESTED PENSION.
IF THE PARTICIPANT DIES ELIGIBLE FOR A SERVICE PENSION OR
WITH 15 YEARS OF PENSION ELIGIBILITY SERVICE, A SURVIVING
SPOUSE RECEIVES A MONTHLY SURVIVOR PENSION PAYABLE FOR LIFE
EQUAL TO 45% OF THE ACCRUED BENEFIT.
WHO TO CONTACT FOR BENEFITS
FIDELITY SERVICE CENTER
P.O. BOX 770003
CINCINNATI, OH 45277-0065
TELEPHONE: 1-800-416-2363
INFORMATION REQUIRED
YOUR FULL NAME AND SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER (SINGLE/MARRIED
NAMES)
LENGTH OF SERVICE (START DATE/TERMINATION)
JOB TITLES (MANAGEMENT/NON-MANAGEMENT)
IF YOUR SPOUSE WAS THE EMPLOYEE, HIS/HER NAME AND JOB TITLE.
###
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