In the LRO’s continuing effort to have a meaningful dialogue with Lucent executives, a second meeting was held on July 8 at the Lucent headquarters in Murray Hill, NJ. The LRO was represented by Eli Shaff, Herb Zydney and myself. Lucent participants included Henry Schacht, Lucent Board Member and Chairman of Lucent’s Pension and Benefits Committee, Pamela Kimmet, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Kathy Fitzgerald, Senior Vice President of Public Relations and Advertising, and other members of the HR and Legal staffs.
Pam Kimmet provided a summary of the important changes that will make our benefits more “user friendly.” There will be one-page mailer with our pension checks; the Web site will be made more friendly; and most importantly the next health benefits mailer in the fall will be simpler and provide better information about the options. Many of these changes were the result of focus group interviews with
retirees sponsored by Lucent.
The meeting mainly focused on Lucent presentations about its business conditions and providing statistical data on pension and healthcare benefits for retirees. We were told that benefits information for 2004 would arrive in your mail by mid-September. They provided little or no information on next steps, because the details of the pending Medicare Prescription Drugs legislation could have influence on total benefit costs. Mr. Schacht requested that the LRO suggest ways that Lucent’s healthcare costs might be controlled. If you have ideas on how healthcare costs for retirees might be reduced without sacri- ficing services, send me an email at kraschke@triad.rr.com.
Your LRO representatives asked a number of questions about the management of the pension and benefit funds. In some cases we received satisfactory answers. On questions where we did not receive an acceptable answer, we are developing a "whitepaper" of questions to press for answers.
At the meeting, we did not receive an answer to our previous request to have one or more LRO members on Mr. Schacht’s Pension and Benefits Committee. We intend to keep pressing Lucent on this issue.
We are pleased that Lucent executives have once again put forth a good faith effort to communicate with retirees by meeting with LRO representatives. (Our first meeting with Lucent executives was held on April 14.) We believe Lucent recognizes the impact that the LRO can have through our power as shareowners, our ability to influence government leaders, and our potential for news media exposure.
For the LRO to continue to strengthen its ability to have a positive impact on Lucent’s decisions on retirees’ pensions and benefits it is essential that we continue to grow our organization beyond our current 4,800 members. If you know retirees who have not joined the LRO, please encourage them to become members. And if you haven’t chosen to be a paid up member, please visit the "Join Us" section of our website and reconsider.
In closing this message, I want to remind you to contact your U.S. Representatives and Senators to oppose the proposed bills on the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan that do not protect retirees who have better prescription drug benefits from their companies. Also, encourage your elected representatives to support HR 1322, the bill introduced by U.S. Representative John Tierney to prevent companies from cutting back or eliminating healthcare benefits promised to retirees. Additional information on these issues can be found in the Legislation section of your LRO website.
Ken Raschke, LRO President
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