AT&T Legacy T Bargaining Report #2

Legacy T Bargaining Report #2

Today the Company presented its proposals on Medical Care, Pensions and other benefits. Based on what they said in their opening statement it was not a surprise that their proposals would be awful but they surpassed our expectations.

We cannot go into every detail here (their proposals were over 20 pages long) but here are the highlights (lowlights?):

MEDICAL:  There are very different benefit provisions for current employees (hired before 2009), 2009 hires, 2012 hires and those hired in 2015.
Since the current employees and 2009 hires are treated better than the others let’s take a look at what they will pay. You can assume the others are worse.

• Over the three years of the agreement:

o Individual premiums will go from $70 to $94;

o Individual + spouse from $120 to $254;

o Individual +children $128 to $155;

o Family (spouse + children) $213 to $258;

(in 2015 individuals paid $79 and families paid $163)

• Deductibles:

o Individuals will go from $500 now to $1300 in 2016;

o Families will go from $1000 to $2600 in 2016;

• Copays increase from 10% to 20%.

• The cost of prescription drugs has been increased;

• The out of pocket maximums for an individual will increase from $2000 to $5200 and for a family from $4000 to $10,400;

• There will be a surcharge of $100 a month if your spouse has access to medical benefits through their own employer, even if their employer does not contribute anything to the cost of the benefit;

• There will be no new money put into HRAs;

PENSIONS:

• They are looking to freeze the current pension plans and new hires will only get 401Ks.

DISABILITY:

• Will be capped at 26 weeks (with a maximum of 90% of pay) and then an employee will have to go on Long Term Disability (if they qualify);

As we said, we cannot go into every detail here but you get AT&T’s message. AT&T MUST ALSO GET OUR MESSAGE – THIS COMPANY CAN AFFORD TO PROVIDE GOOD BENEFITS FOR ALL OF ITS EMPLOYEES. THESE INCREASES ARE TOTALLY UNNECESSARY.

We must let them know in every workplace that we will not agree to a contract with these attacks on our benefits.

Your bargaining team,

Bill Bates
Mary Ellen Mazzeo
Laura Unger
LaNell Piercy
Lois Grimes-Patow
Roy Hegenbart
Isa Shabazz
Martha Flagge