CORRE Blog

At the CORRE annual meeting on September 24, Dub Shults - the incoming CORRE President -made the following comments.

Let me begin with a little story.  It is about a retired farmer who lives on a small farm near here.  He had cleaned a little pond on his property and planted some fruit trees around it and made it into a pretty nice little swimming hole. One evening he decided to go down and admire his pond and get some fruit, so he got a bucket and started walking down to the pond.   As he got close he heard a bunch of girls talking and laughing.  They were skinny dipping in his pond.  When they saw him approaching, they moved to the far side of the pond, scrunched down in the water,  and shouted: “We’re not coming out while you are here.”  The farmer held up his bucket and said: “I didn’t come down here to see you naked girls…I just came down to feed the alligator.”

 

There is a message here for us CORRE members:  We may be retired but there is a lot of life in us still.

 

I was raised in a railroad family.  My dad worked 43 years for the Southern Railway and he loved it.  He would have done anything for the railroad and he felt the railroad would do anything for him, which was pretty close to the truth in those days.  It was a good environment for a kid to grown up in.  I got to ride engines and go to derailments and eat with the men and hang out at the shops.  I will always have a little railroad blood in me.

 

I don’t remember seeing signs around the railroad about the company’s vision or its mission statement or its regulations.  What I do remember is a simple four-word sign that seemed to be posted everywhere.  It simply said “It Can’t Be Done” with a big red line drawn through the apostrophe and little “t” so the real message came through as “It Can Be Done.”  It was a constant reminder that no matter how hard or difficult or impossible a job might seem, it should be undertaken with the thought that one way or another it could be done.  It was a message to think positive.  That is the way I feel about CORRE and its quest for improvements in our retirement benefits. 

 

Often, when someone learns that I am a member of the CORRE Board, I am asked two questions: What is CORRE doing these days?  and Are we making any progress? The short answers are Lots and Yes.  It has been a good year, albeit the progress has not been as much or as fast as we would like or as we deserve.

 

Before I answer those two questions, I need to mention our dilemma.  On one hand, we are proud of our former employers and our association with them.  We appreciate and respect them and wish them much continued success.  On the other hand, we are forced to struggle with them to get benefits that we earned and deserve.  So, we are caught in a dilemma…somewhat like having a confrontation with a good friend or a  family member.  We’ll fight if we have to, but we would rather work it out.

 

Now, to the first question: What is CORRE doing these days?  Let me answer that question by listing six major  functions of the organization and give an example of each.  When I say “CORRE,” I include the Board and its advisors and all 12,000 of us retirees.

1.  Maintains Awareness.  CORRE has to be aware of policies and activities that relate to our goals.  These may come from DOE, the contractors, the congress, or even from retiree organizations at other sites.  A good example of this function is that CORRE discovered that contractors at other sites are sharing their Medicare Part D incentive money with their retirees, but that practice has not been permitted in Oak Ridge.  CORRE brought that discrepancy to the attention of local contractors and they agreed to explore that option.

 

2.  Identifies Issues and Develops Potential Solutions. Inherent in this function is a great deal of study and debate within the Board and with its advisors.  A huge amount of work went into development of our proposal to restore 75% of the lost purchasing power of our pensions.

 

3.  Works with the Contractors and DOE.  This function entails lots of personal communication, correspondence, e-mails, and meetings.  A prime example of this is CORRE’s action when told that it was impossible to calculate the cost of the pension adjustment that we proposed…that there just wasn’t enough data to do that.  CORRE developed a method for making that calculation and provided it to the contractors and to our congressional representatives…and it proved to be acceptable.

 

4.  Works with our Congressional Representatives.  The thrust of this function is to assure that our representatives have clear and accurate understanding of CORRE’s issues and proposals, and to provide them with any information that they request or need.  During the past year, our representatives asked CORRE to help get agreement among the contractors as to the estimated cost of our pension adjustment.  We did and there is now agreement on those estimates.

 

5.  Communicates and Informs.  This is a critical function.  The organization wants to maintain good communication not only with the membership, but also with the contractors and DOE, with the media, and with the general public.  Thus, we maintain an extensive web site and a blog, publish newsletters and position papers, produce brochures and DVDs, and we encourage open discussion of our program in the print media using both letters to the editor and submitted articles from the membership.

 

6.  Acts with Integrity.  The organization must conduct itself in a highly professional manner.  This means our work must be accurate and honest and rational.  We want our work to be unquestionable in any and every way.

 

So, you see, CORRE is doing lots of things…all the time.  Let me say it the JFK way: “Let the word go forth.  We will pursue any lead, respond to any request, answer any question, attend any meeting, supply any information, write any document, and overcome any obstacle…in our quest for fair and just treatment of contractor  retirees of DOE’s Oak Ridge facilities.”

 

Now, to the second question: Are we making any progress?  My answer to that is Absolutely!

 

1.  We  now know for a fact that our representatives clearly understand the issues and what we have requested and what is at stake.

2.  We know for a fact that they not only support us, but they will work for us…and they have…and they are.

3.  We know for a fact that there are fewer differences of opinion between us and the benefit managers this year than last year.

4.  We know for a fact that we brought forth two new issues this year: sharing the Medicare Part D incentive money and the need to raise the cap on health insurance claims.

         5.  We know that communication with the contractors has been good this year.

         6.  And finally, we know that some things that were in the Can’t Be Done category last year are in the Can Be Done category this year.

 

The bottom line is that CORRE really has made significant progress during the past year!

 

Now, I want to make a pitch for your help and participation.  To do this, I will use Mother Theresa’s “anyway” approach.  She challenged the way people think and act and she did it with simple admonitions like these:

 

            “If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;

                                    Be honest and frank…anyway.”

 

            “The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;;

                                    Do good…anyway.”

 

So, here are some admonitions for us to think about and act on:

 

            If you write to the media, your words may seem self-serving;

                                    Write to the media…anyway

 

            If you contact your representatives, your message may get lost in the system;

                                    Contact them…anyway.

 

            If you recruit members for CORRE, people may pooh pooh your invitation;

                                    Recruit members…anyway.

 

            If you offer suggestions, they may appear ignored;

                                    Offer suggestions…anyway.

 

            If you think “It Can Be Done,” people may think you overly optimistic;

                                    Think it….anyway.

 

            When we succeed, some will be envious and other dissatisfied;

                                    We will succeed…anyway.

 

So, write, contact, recruit, suggest, think success.  I can’t overstate how important this is.  Anything we do along these lines will help CORRE’s programs move forward.  Here are the reasons:

            -More active members in CORRE will mean a stronger voice.

            -More letters and articles in the media will mean more public support.

            -More contacts with representatives will mean more clout in high places.

 

I just can’t overstate how important this is!

 

So, to summarize.  My message is simple:

1.  CORRE has requested improvements in our benefits that are reasonable, straightforward, and just!

            2.  We earned them and we deserve them!

            3.  We are working hard to get them!

            4.  We are making progress!

            5.  We will succeed…if we work together!

 

TOGETHER…IT CAN BE DONE

           

Thanks to each of you for coming today and thanks for your support of CORRE.

 

My name is Dub Shults and I approve this message.