President Reichle reports that ~500 retirees attended the annual meeting. Ten retirees joined CORRE at the meeting. Also, $170 was contributed by members who said they wanted to help as much as possible.
-Editor
At the Annual CORRE meeting on September 26, the Medicare Part D subsidy was discussed. A member asked for that information to be repeated here. Charlie Kurykendall supplied the information below.
-The Editor
The essence of the Medicare Part D subsidy story is this: Many
private companies have eliminated their medicare supplementary
medical insurance for retirees and the government was trying to stem
the tide by offering to provide a "subsidy" to any company willing to
continue the supplementary medical insurance. All DOE prime
contractors have continued their coverage and DOE got the subsidy. In
Oak Ridge we have been told that our supplementary insurance costs
are split 50/50 with the contractor. If DOE got the 28% subsidy why
wasn't half of it applied to cutting our portion of the Major Medical
Medicare Supplementary Insurance.
Members might be interested in checking out articles on the CORRE annual meeting held September 26. Here are the links:
Frank Munger in the Knoxville News Sentinel
Dave Reichle, President of CORRE, interview (video)
Beverly Majors in the Oak Ridger
Yesterday at the annual meeting of CORRE, President Reichle encouraged you to communicate with your congressional delegation. Al Brooks has done that many times. He has shared one of his letters with us to use as a guide.
-The Editor
Dear Senator Corker:
If no one introduces legislation or initiates some other remedial action, there will be nothing for you and the other Tennessee legislators to "review and vote on". This Oak Ridge problem is separate and in addition to the national DOE pension problem and needs a local solution. Legislators from other states have taken similar action in regard to the University of California DOE sites. Why should Oak Ridge retirees receive any less assistance? Please work with the Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees (CORRE) to initiate some definitive corrective action.
Sincerely,
Alfred A. Brooks, Contractor Retiree
A retiree asked:
I wonder if CORRE should offer a “special” for those who attend the annual meeting: a $10 membership. On the spot. Once in a lifetime. More memberships is good.
Charlie Kuryendall said in response:
Most retiree organizations have ANNUAL dues. We chose to keep it simple and have a lifetime membership with a MINIMUM contribution. The $20 is the minimum for active lifetime membership, however several retirees have contributed more than $100 when they signed on as active members.
Buddy Holley asked:
How many living retirees are there and what is the average age?
Joe Setaro provided the following information in response:
According to our latest information from the Company (ORNL/BWXT) the
total number of retirees is 11,025. This does not include retirees
of BJC and Wackenhut, but these are few.
We do not have the average age of retirees. We do, however, have the
number of retirees by year of retirement. The median year of
retirement is 1995 (5,696 current retirees/surviving spouses retired
from the beginning of 1995 through the end of 2006).
Faye G asked:
Does CORRE represent retirees at Paducah and Portsmouth, and if not why not?
Charlie Kurykendall responded as follows:
We talked about joining forces many times. The deciding factor was that the Paducah and Portsmouth retirees are under a completely different retirement plan than Oak Ridge retirees. We share information and maintain contacts but have never combined forces. We are not certain about how it happened but they were separated from the Oak Ridge plan when they were privatized. DOE implies it was the choice of the unions and some concessions on health benefits were given to all those retirees at the time. We think the retirees got a bad deal.
The CORRE Blog is a welcome adjunct to the CORRE website; and I urge the CORRE membership to use it frequently, as its use will be a measure of the support for CORRE and its efforts on behalf of members and other retirees.
The Brooks/Henderson website with its crude blog does not wish to compete with CORRE. Therefore, the CORRE blog and website should be the publishing route of choice. However, the B/H site and blog will remain open to accommodate any submissions that do not meet the CORRE guidelines. The CORRE member E-mail list (~700) will also be available.
Again, I urge the members to make the CORRE blog a success by using it freely.
Al Brooks
The issue of low contractor pensions for retirees of Oak Ridge contractors is the subject of an article in the Oak Ridger. The Oak Ridger also had three letters yesterday on the subject of pensions. The issue needs more coverage in the local media. This is a good sign.
Most of the East Tennessee retirees from the DOE Contractors in Oak Ridge are represented by Congressmen John Duncan (2nd District), Zach Wamp (3rd District), and Lincoln Davis (4th District).
All have been supportive of CORRE's objectives, have contacted the Mangers of the major facilities in Oak Ridge (UT-Battelle, BWXT, Bechtel-Jacobs, and Wackenhut), and have written to the Secretary of Energy on our behalf. Zach Wamp, in whose district DOE-Oak Ridge is located has taken the lead.
Congressman Wamp was instrumental in helping to block the "420 Transfer" of surplus funds out of the MEPP Trust Fund to construct buildings at Y-12. Zach Wamp was the force behind the pension benefit adjustment (averaging 15% and prorated from older to younger retirees) announced in 2001 (note this applied only to those who retired before April 1998). Zach also supported the 2004 minimum pension provision for retirees in 2004 ($600 couple/$400 surviving spouse). Zach serves on the House Energy & Water Committee's Subcommittee on Appropriations. This subcommittee restricted DOE from using any appropriated funds to implement DOE change notice 351.1 that was issued in draft in 2006. This notice would have effectively blocked any future pension adjustments for retirees. DOE withdrew this draft notice in 2007 in response to comments from across the country. The Hanford WA press gave Zach's role on the House Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee credit for the single most important action instopping 351.1.
Our Congressmen continued to support pension adjustments for retirees, but the Department of Energy in Washington has stated that there will be no future pension adjustments. DOE says that they can no longer afford them [note the MEPP Trust Fund in Oak Ridge currently has a surplus in excess of $600 M).
It will take the proactive support of Tennessee's senators to obtain change in DOE's position. CORRE representatives have sought unsuccessfully to meet with Senator Alexander. CORRE did meet with Senator Corker earlier this year within 6 months of his election. Both have been thoroughly appraised of the pension issues. Retirees have been waiting to see what they will do. Time is not on the side of retirees and they are impatient. They want to see the pension issue as a key priority of their elected officials.
See the CORRE web site (www.CORRE.info) for more commentary and correspondence on this topic. If you wish to make comments or ask questions, E-mail the blog editor at davemason@corre.info.
Written by CORRE Board President David Reichle
Dear Senator Corker:
I know you are very busy on critical issues and I appreciate your work as a public servant. Please take a few minutes of your time to clearly understand the plight of the Oak Ridge Retirees.
We have a simple problem that won't be solved without your help. Our retirement trust fund has over $3 Billion, including over $600 million in surplus government funds. For many years the contractor who administered the fund arranged for an adjustment to retiree pensions when the average purchasing power of the pensions had dwindled to around 50% of their original value. New contractors and new DOE management in Washington have not seen fit to continue these past practices even though they were fair and have required no new government money since 1984.
Adjustments to retiree pensions would be good for the area economy as well as the pensioners. The Secretary of Energy has said he is the person who has to make the decision. I trust you will be willing to help him see the wisdom of not dragging his feet any longer on this move. About 12,000 of us are counting on you to get involved.
Charlie Kuykendall
Welcome to the CORRE blog.
The Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees (CORRE) has established this blog for you - a employee retired from the Y-12 Plant, ORNL, the former K-25 site, Wackenhut, or Bechtel Jacobs. If you are a surviving spouse of a retired Oak Ridge employee or an interested family member, this blog is for you. I think also that current employees of one of the Oak Ridge sites will be interested as they will someday be retired and eligible for the retirement benefits. This blog is intended to allow you the opportunity to stay abreast of the CORRE activities related to your retirement benefits. In addition, it provides a forum for you to ask questions, share opinions, and make comments.
The CORRE Board of Directors has authorized this blog and has tasked me to be its editor. The Board wants you to know what it is doing on your behalf and the Board needs your input to be sure it is working in the right direction.
To help you stay abreast, we will post topics of interest approximately every other week on Friday. We have enlisted several contributors who will write short articles on special topics.
The Board and other retirees would like to hear from you about:
-Your experiences with the the decrease in value of your pension
-Any experience with corespondence with officials about Oak Ridge experiences
-Your experience with medical cost
-Summaries of, and references to, articles about retirement benefits, the cost of living for retirees, and ideas on how to manage on retirement income
If you have information, comments, or opinions that you want to share, just send them to me at davemason@corre.info. I will review them and post them as soon as possible. If I think it may not be appropriate for posting, I wll inform you in a return E-mail.
If you have a question, just E-mail it to me; if I cannot answer the question, I will find someone who can answer and post the answer.
As we start this blog, I have only one rule for you -you must identify yourself to me in your E-mail. However, if you tell me in your E-mail, I will not identify you when I post your submittal.
You can of course comment at any time on any of the posts in this blog.
So please use this blog to keep yourself informed and also to let other retirees know how you feel.
Dave Mason, Editor
Or does he care? CORRE representatives met with Senator Corker in June to explain the need for adjustments to pensions and how they are justified and affordable. Unfortunately, CORRE officers have been in a position of playing catch-up with Senator Corker, as the companies had already gotten to him first. Today, Senator Corker's office sent out his latest newsletter with no mention of the pension issue, and there is no mention of it on his website.
I wrote the following email to Senator Corker today:
"Your recent newsletter received today and your website makes no mention of the issue on Oak Ridge pensions. Why not?
It would appear to us that the matter is not on your agenda. Perhaps you have bought into the administration policy which is not to honor past commitments to people. It would appear to us that the administration is only seriously interested in honoring commitments to business and moneyed interests. We would recommend you not buy into that policy.
We elected you to represent the people of Tennessee, not the companies that run the DOE plants. The companies don't vote and are not citizens.
Be assured that the 12,000 retirees and their families are watching what you do."
Write to him yourself, if you are concerned. Click here to send him email.
According to an Oak Ridger article, The Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee passed a bill Thursday that would block the Department of Energy's new Contractor Employee Pension and Medical Benefits Policy if approved by the full committee.
Quoting from the article in the Oak Ridger:
The Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee's bill states, "None of the funds made available in Title 3 of this act shall be used for implementation of DOE Order 351.1 or any similar DOE order modifying the Contractor Employee Pension and Medical Benefits Policy."
"We're using congressional influence to try to keep in check the executive branch's efforts to withhold payments to contractors for certain pension benefits, which is what the order originally said," U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Third District, said Thursday."
Further quote from Rep. Wamp: "Congress is trying to exert pressure to protect retirement benefits of workers, and at the same time, there's a great effort in Congress to get increased compensation for our retirees. It's a difficult process because the contractors, NNSA and DOE, are unified in their concern about out-year capabilities to honor needed increases and pensions.
"But this demonstrates Congress is putting pressure on the administration to side with retirees."
End of Quotes from the Oak Ridger—-
Note– This is a step in the right direction to persuade DOE and the administration to start considering improvements to pensions of Oak Ridge retirees. It is good to see the Congress asserting itself on this general issue. The vote of the full committee is coming up this week- on Tuesday, according to the Oak Ridger.
CORRE Annual Meeting
2:00 p.m, Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Heritage Fellowship Church
121 N. Illinois Avenue, Oak Ridge
Agenda
Welcome and Announcements Sandy Dean, Communications
Report to CORRE Members Dave Reichle, President
Introduction of Guest Speakers Pete Lotts, Chair, Gov. Rel. Com.
What Members Can Do Pete Lotts, Chair, Gov. Rel. Com.
Election of Officers/Board Members Bob Worrell, Chair, Nom. Com.
Questions from Audience Dave Reichle and Board Members
_____________________________________________
Officers/Board Members to be Elected for 2008
Dave Reichle, President
Joe Setaro, First Vice President
Bob Keil, Second Vice President
Mary Helen Rose, Secretary
Paula Wright, Treasurer
Marty Goolsby, Communications
Charlie Kuykendall, Past President
Mike Bradshaw Keith Kibbe Ed Mee Dub Shults
Joyce Conner Tom Lemons Ken Moore Don Wood
Sandy Dean Pete Lotts Pete Peterson Bob Worrell
Lou Dunlap Dave Mason Larry Pierce
Advisors (Appointed by President and Board)
Bob Henderson Chuck Landguth Gary Riser
Judy Kibbe Fred Postma Harriett Westmoreland
Directions to Meeting Location-
The church is just North of Intersection of Illinois with Oak Ridge Turnpike. Go up the hill from Turnpike, pass the church on your left, then turn left at Ivanhoe Lane. There is quite a bit of parking at the church, but you may also park on S. Illinois Avenue in parking lot of former Food City Store (about two blocks from church). Shuttle buses will run from there to the church, beginning at 1:00 p.m.
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According to the local news, Senator Alexander was in town this week for a couple of events: a ceremony at SNS and a panel discussion at ORAU. Did he meet with CORRE while he was here? One would think that he would be interested in the "pension deficit" in Oak Ridge.
I wonder if CORRE should offer a "special" for those who attend the annual meeting: a $10 membership. On the spot. Once in a lifetime. More memberships is good.
This is a interesting question but one that should be considered by the CORRE Board. I will suggest that President Reichle add this to the agenda of the next Board meeting.
The Editor
There is evidence that DOE is circumventing the intent of Congress by withholding Part D Medicare funds from contractors for partial payments of their costs of maintaining drug benefits for retirees.
Our understanding is that the 2003 Congress passed the Medicare Improvement Act to benefit older citizens. This Act established a The DOE contractors were apparently discouraged by DOE from applying for the subsidy. In the case of the Oak Ridge, Tennessee facilities, UT-Battelle LLC, operator of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, applied for the subsidy, but that request was rejected by DOE. BWXT LLC (operator of the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant) did not apply for the subsidy after it heard about the rebuff of UT-Battelle’s application. We do not know whether other DOE contractors in Oak Ridge applied. Since the contractors split the cost of their drug benefit with retirees on a 50-50 basis, the easiest way for them to apply the subsidy would have been to apply it to the total insurance cost (and thus reduce the cost) and then split the remaining cost on a 50-50 basis. However, the contractors have not received this subsidy from the DOE.
In other words, the Part D supplement could have been used to reduce your insurance premiums. It has not been. Retirees might want to ask their congressmen–"Why not?".
