A Must Read
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008Bob Henderson and Alfred Brooks write:
Dub Shults, a 1994 retiree, has published a thoughtful guest column in Sunday's News Sentinel (
Archive for April, 2008
State Resolution
Saturday, April 26th, 2008Alfred Brooks suggested I post this for your information.
The HJR 1006 resolution urging the TN Legislature and others to support the CORRE pension plans can be found at : http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/bills/currentga/BILL/HJR1006.pdf
Oak Ridge retirees deserve raise- article in the Knoxville News Sentinel
Sunday, April 20th, 2008Dub Shults has an article in today' s Knoxville News Sentinel on the lack of pension adjustments for Oak Ridge retirees. Dub gets to the point:
"Here is a headline that I would like to see somewhere, sometime: "DOE contractor retirees win pension adjustment." Reminds me of the Peyton Manning TV commercial where he says, "It ain't gonna happen."
The fact is, DOE and its contractor organizations continue to delay and deny requests by local retirees for a pension adjustment, even though one is needed, deserved, reasonable, just and affordable and would require no new appropriation of federal money."
Read Dub's article on the KNS website.
If retirees can’t swim, DOE lets them drown
Saturday, April 19th, 2008That is the message of a letter from Harold F. Cornett to the Oak Ridger on April 17, 2008. Here is an excerpt from his letter: "DOE has been a thorn in the side of the plant workers since the early years of Oak Ridge. They have yet to honor or respect those of us who built and operated the plants through the productive times. Now that we are retired and inadequately compensated, their attitude is if they can't swim then let them drown and good riddance."
B&W Retiree Newsletter No More
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008Monday, I told you that B&W was dropping the Newsletter we have enjoyed for years. I suggested it was probably a cost cutting action. Below is an exerpt from Frank Munger's blog. As you can see, the move was indeed about saving money - $16,000. I think the B&W budget is only about $900,000,000. So clearly, the $16,000 is crucial to the success of the B&W mission at Y-12.
-The Editor
ps: Thanks for helping Frank!
Bill Wilburn, a B&W spokesman, said the move was about saving money and was not a negative action against CORRE.
"The retiree newsletter was discontinued as a cost-saving measure and because it was providing information that was often redundant to information sent to retirees by the B&W Y-12 Human Capital organization," Wilburn said in a statement by e-mail
He said the cost saving was more than $16,000 per year.
"Additionally, when the retiree newsletter was started, the retiree group CORRE did not have its own Web site through which it could provide information to its members," Wilburn said.
Representative Lincoln Davis Speaks of CORRE
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008Bob Henderson provides below a detailed memo regarding Representative Davis' recent visit to Harriman. -The Editor
On Wednesday, March 26th, Congressman Lincoln Davis, Representative of the 4th District held a "Town Hall" meeting in Harriman to hear from his constituents in Roane County.
There was a very large turnout at the Utopia Cafe. I'd estimate there were more than 150 persons in attendance to talk about a variety of concerns. Tom Lemons, a CORRE board member, was there as was former CORRE board member Bill Wilcox. There were a number of other Oak Ridge retirees in attendance, but I didn't recognize any of them.
The first comment made, after some brief intro comments by Rep. Davis was by Frank Williams, Jr. of Kingston who said he had retired in 1984 after 37 years of service at the X-10 site. He mentioned that he had been married 62 years. Frank asked Rep. Davis to help get something done about the pensions for OR retirees. He said the increasing costs of medicine,food and gas, in particular, was really making those on pensions suffer. Frank mentioned that he was a member of CORRE. In response to Williams' remarks, Hal Butler of Kingston told Rep. Davis that he (Butler) had written a letter to the editor of the Roane County News that was published in the Wednesday, March 26th edition of the paper about CORRE: Pension hike long overdue.
I got a chance to speak and I mentioned that I was a member of CORRE and that we were concerned about our pensions. I pointed out that there were over 1700 Roane County recipients of pensions and that the requested adjustments would add significantly to the Roane County tax base, the same as many new jobs would do. (Rep. Davis had mentioned prior to his visit that new jobs for the area were one of his primary goals.) I gave him a copy of the CORRE DVD and gave him written information that had been provided me by Joe Setaro about the financial impact of the requested adjustments for Roane County.
I met Davis' communications coordinator Tom Hayden and also Paul Scarbrough of Rockwood who is Davis' Field Representative in Roane County. Also present were John Boughtin who is in Davis' Washington office and Sammy (or Sonny) Loudermilk who is Davis' District Director out of the McMinnville office.
Rep. Davis said he is very much aware of CORRE's concerns and he has been doing all he can to help us. I mentioned that we would like to see some mention of this problem and his actions toward helping solve it on his Web site. He said they would put something there, letting us know what he has been doing in this regard.
I said that the DOE contractor retirees in New Mexico and California and other states had better pensions that did those of us in Tennessee. I said one big reason, I felt, was that the
elected officials in those states had taken a stronger and more active role in supporting their constituents with the DOE. Davis said that the situation in California was different because the University of California had those contracts and they had a very good pension system. He also said that in Oak Ridge, there were private companies that were controlling the pension funds and that it was difficult to get them to act. After the meeting concluded Tom Lemons and I waited and talked some more with Rep. Davis. I pointed out that the pension funds were administered by one of the contractors, but that the funds were for a specific purpose and couldn't be used for any other items. Also, I pointed out that Union Carbide had modeled our pension program after the one that parent company had. While they did not have automatic COLAs, they did make periodic adjustments after any periods of significant inflation. I mentioned that Lockheed-Martin, when they took over the contract in 1984, had not followed the practice of adjustments to offset inflation. I also pointed out that no contributions had been made to the pension fund since 1984, yet the contractors and DOE said there wasn't sufficient funds in the pension pot to allow for any adjustments to the retiree pensions.
I also mentioned that Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico, had said that he wouldn't vote to approve the, then newly nominated, Secretary of Energy unless he could assure Domenici that the retiree benefits for his state would not be reduced. Representative Davis said that that was certainly a good approach for us to pursue with our Senators, since only the senators get to vote on the candidates for positions such as Secretary of Energy.
I told him that in South Carolina, at Savannah River, the elected officials from both the Democratic and Republican parties had banned together to present a united front in support of those constituents. Rep. Davis assured us that they do the same in Tennessee and that we needed to make sure that Alexander and Corker were on board with the requests of CORRE. He assured us that no one had worked harder on the behalf of the Oak Ridge workers and retirees than had Lincoln Davis, and that he would continue to work on our behalf.
He mentioned something about Governor Bredesen and I said that he could help us there also, since Bredesen is the Chairman of the Board for the University of Tennessee and that UT-Battelle is the managing contractor for ORNL. He said, yes, BUT, the contract is with Battelle, not with the University of TN. I said that I'd bet if Governor Bredesen said to Battelle that his Tennessee constituents who are DOE contractor retirees were being treated unfairly compared to those retirees in other states and that he wanted that to change that UT-Battelle could find a way to make the changes requested by CORRE.
He didn't comment on that statement.
I think CORRE members need to continue to bring this issue to Rep. Davis' attention and continue to ask him to work with our other elected officials to help bring about a positive result for all our retirees.
( Note: I just read the Roane County News article about the Rep. Davis meeting and much to my disappointment and chagrin, the author (Cindy Simpson) didn't report a single word about any mention of CORRE or our pension concerns by Frank Williams, Jr., Hal Butler, or myself.)
