Lucent Workers Take Fight to Shareholders

CWA members and retirees at Lucent Technologies are keeping up their fight to stop the company from carrying out cuts in jobs, health care and other benefits in the wake of the merger with French-owned Alcatel.

At a special shareholder meeting this week in Wilmington, Del., 100 CWAers were out in force, alerting shareholders to potential problems with the merger and concerns about health and retirement security.

Ralph Maly, CWA vice president for communications and technologies, reminded executives and shareholders that workers and retirees "have huge concerns with the direction that Lucent is going and the future of our jobs, health care and pensions" and that "we are looking for answers about the merger."

While CWA and the IBEW have been working to relieve Lucent's health care obligations through legislative efforts, especially for retirees, the company was negotiating more than $100 million in savings for itself from health care and prescription drug providers, fully intending to shift more costs onto workers and retirees, Maly said.

Maly called on Lucent to agree to an extension to Jan. 1, 2007 for any pension and health care changes pending legislative action to allow Lucent to use funds from the occupational pension plan for future health care obligations. "Our members and retirees are looking to be part of the future, and to have Lucent — or its merger partner — do the right thing," he said. 

Lucent shareholders narrowly approved the Alcatel merger, with 51.9 percent of shares supporting it.

Still unresolved is ownership of Bell Labs, which carries out high technology and defense-related research and development projects.