October 2004
President’s Message
October, 2004
I am pleased to inform you that our Association continues to add retirees to our membership roster. Currently, over 2000 former Pacific Bell/Nevada Bell retirees have “joined up.” (We sincerely thank those members of the Association who have been actively recruiting their friends and former Pac Bell associates.)
Telephone Concession Service
Your Association has been attempting to encourage the SBC Corporation to reinstate telephone concession benefits for those retirees living outside of an SBC serving area. (These individuals currently receive $25 monthly towards their concession service. These payments are subject to FICA taxes which lowers their actual concession reimbursement.
Following numerous letters and telephone calls to SBC executives (all without success), your Association filed a formal complaint with the CPUC on August 17, 2004 seeking adjudication of this issue with SBC. As of this writing, we are awaiting the CPUC date for the hearing.
Financials
Treasurer, Mr. Robert Hinshaw, continues to provide prudent management of our income and expenses. At the time of this writing, our financial statement reflects a balance of income over expenses of $30,602.10.
Major expenses to the Association have involved establishment of our Website (telcoretirees.org or telcoretirees.com), Association membership with the National Retiree Legislative Network (NRLN), expenses associated with federal and state applications for non-profit status and the establishment of the corporation. We contemplate additional expenses associated with our pending application for corporate liability insurance.
Membership
Our revised membership applications now include a section requesting the applicant’s ownership of SBC stock. Future plans call for the attendance of our organization at SBC stockowner meetings. To that end, the TelCo Retirees Association, Inc. has purchased $2,000.00 of SBC stock in the name of our corporate association. This is required by the SEC in order for a corporation to represent itself at a stockholder meeting. All income from the stock ownership will revert to the TelCo Retirees Association, Inc.
We will encourage the attendance of all TelCo Retiree Association members (stockholders) to attend SBC stockholder meetings where possible. (Other large Bell System retiree organizations have been attending corporate stockholder meetings in order to present their retirees’ concerns regarding pensions and health benefits.)
Volunteers
As we look forward to the future, the need for TelCo Retiree Association members to take a more active role in our membership recruiting, legislative activities and other major programs becomes ever more apparent. For example, we are contemplating undertaking an active legislative program that will require all of our members to communicate with their respective U.S. Congressmen and U.S. Senators. “Communicate” can mean correspondence, attendance at local Congressional meetings and email or other types of communication where threatening issues to our promised pension and health benefits place our members at risk.
A great statesman once said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing!” We fully acknowledge the truth of that quotation.
Sumner K. Emery, President
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