Chapter President’s Message
Joe Sciulli
Chapter President
APRIL 2025
HAPPY 22ND BIRTHDAY, LRO! The LUCENT RETIREES ORGANIZATION was chartered in January 2003 in the state of New York. Its purpose is and was to address the interests of thousands of individuals under the Lucent pension plan that embodies all Lucent and Bell Labs retirees, including those who retired when the company was known as Western Electric and/or AT&T Network Systems, plus subsidiaries such as Teletype and Sandia. Over the 20 years, over 17,000 retirees have been members, over 13,000 are still active, and half of those have been contributing members.
In 2020, we became the Lucent/Nokia Chapter of the NRLN. Our mission remains the same, but we have teamed with other retiree organizations representing millions of retirees to make our issues known in Washington. Three NRLN Board members, the President, VP Communications, and VP Information Technology, are members of the Lucent/Nokia Chapter.
Why the NRLN?
- We are a community-based retiree advocacy group (Grass roots)
- Our team scours media and social media to identify threats to retiree medical, social security and pension benefits
- The NRLN maintains a presence in Washington DC to develop relationships
- We mobilize our resources to respond to threats by:
- Drafting and delivering Action Alerts
- Deploying our team to lobby and deliver our agenda in person to legislators (Fly in)
- Developing White papers based on research our team conducts
- Leveraging our access to Industry experts to support retirees
We serve our members by:
- Maintaining NRLN.ORG to keep our retirees current on issues relevant to retirees
- We answer your questions and help navigate retiree issues
- The NRLN provides a Report Card to all members that gives specific current information on whether their U.S. Senators and Representatives sponsor or cosponsor bills the NRLN supports or opposes.
- Current Senior Issues are gathered annually from NRLN members to determine the NRLN Legislative Agenda.
- NRLN members receive current NRLN Newsletters and can review relevant letters sent to appropriate congressional leaders for action.
- Our Legislative Committee members attend important Congressional Committee staff meetings that can impact legislation on priority issues that require their action. They also maintain ongoing relationships with other important retiree advocacy entities (e.g. Pension Rights Center) and other outside influencers.
How you can help.
- Join our Chapter or join the appropriate chapter of the NRLN.
- Encourage fellow retirees to join us.
- Respond to Action Alerts to make your views heard in Congress.
- Volunteer to help. Our chapter is looking for Board members and members proficient in Microsoft Access and Excel.
- Contribute what you can to further our efforts.
Your contribution of $35, $50, $75 or more per year will assist us in pursuing legislation in Congress. NRLN is a non-profit organization. Because NRLN lobbies, contributions to NRLN are not tax deductible. AREF: The AREF is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization. Donations ARE tax deductible.
WELCOME!
A few hundred members discovered that they were no longer on our mailing list and re-subscribed by going to EMAIL SIGNUP .
Happy to have you back.
SPECIAL NOTICES TO MEMBERS
Lots of Benefits information on our Chapter Benefits Team pages.
Nokia Benefits Website
Retirees can use the YBR website for benefit-related activities such as:
- Enrolling in Nokia’s health and welfare plans (e.g., medical and dental);
- Making and/or changing Nokia Savings/401(k) Plan elections;
- Updating dependent or beneficiary information
- Projecting pension benefits and/or electing to commence pension benefits.
Nokia Benefits Resource Center (NBRC)1-888-232-4111
International Long Distance 1-212-444-0994
https://digital.alight.com/nokia
Do we have your current email address?
We regularly inform members about important news. If you have mistakenly ‘unsubscribed’ to one of our emails, you will no longer hear from us unless you re-subscribe.
To “re-subscribe”, or to sign up to receive our emails, or if you are not sure we have your current address, CLICK HERE
The entire NRLN 2025 legislative program is available by clicking here. In particular, these issues of interest to our members are being pursued by the NRLN:
Pension Plan De-risking:
More companies are doing “de-risking” (Pension Risk Transfer) of their pension plans by purchasing annuities from third party insurance companies. This strips retirees of federal law protections. Foremost among protections that the NRLN wants to become law is our statute proposal that an annuity contract must include full reinsurance of monthly benefit payments. Only a group annuity contract that requires independent, third-party reinsurance with a highly rated insurance company can protect pension plan participants.
Social Security
will only be able to pay 100% of total benefits until 2035. Afterward, income will only be sufficient to pay 83% of benefits. The NRLN supports closing the funding gap by making all wages subject to the payroll tax. Social Security’s Chief Actuary said eliminating the taxable maximum would close about 70% of the shortfall and ensure solvency until 2060.
Medicare
will be able to pay 100% of benefits until 2036. Afterward, reserves will be depleted, and income will only be able to pay 89% of benefits. The NRLN advocates Congress stop listening to healthcare insurance lobbyists and properly fund Medicare.
The NRLN continues to lobby members of Congress against the high cost of healthcare shifted to retirees and the unfairness of the chronic illness subsidized benefits that are being denied to 27 million original Medicare Parts A and B participants. NRLN’s proposal equalizes chronic benefits for all over age 65.
NRLN wants legislation to end pay-for-delay and other brand-name drugmakers’ tactics that keep generics off the market. We support bills to allow Americans to import prescription drugs from Canada.
Corporate Mergers:
We have gone through the corporate mergers with Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia. The NRLN has developed a whitepaper and is lobbying Congress for legislation to protect retirees in corporate mergers, acquisitions and spin-off.
How we run our money: Nokia
In the article below, Arto Sirvio, Nokia’s director of pensions, tells Carlo Svaluto Moreolo how the communication and information technology company manages a large portfolio of pension plans. Reprinted from January 2018. In a world where corporate behavior comes under closer scrutiny, the way companies treat current and past employees is critical. Ensuring they are financially secure in retirement is not something that can be overlooked by management boards. But for a company such as Nokia, which has about 100,000 staff and more than 200,000 retired employees, pensions can become a great challenge.
Click here for the full article.
CLICK THIS IMAGE TO SEE THE SURVEY
HOW YOU CAN HELP OUR CHAPTER
- Become a Member! Sign up to receive emails from us here.
- Be an active member. Respond to Action Alerts. Congress does listen to what constituents are saying. Your letters supporting NRLN lobbying efforts make a difference. Congress knows that those letters and emails are from retirees trying to protect retirees.
- Reach out to other retirees that you know through clubs, your emails or Facebook. We need them to join us to gain strength. Ask them to sign up for emails here.
- Volunteer your time. We need folks who are a little younger than mid-eighties to help in small ways. It’s time for the next generation — you know, you 60- to 70-year-olds, to step up! If you have HR experience, you could be very helpful in the benefits area. If you think you would like to help, even a few hours a month, email me at lucentchapter@nrln.org.
- Support us financially. Your contribution of $35 or more is important to finance the work of the new chapter. Click here to make your contribution by credit card or send a check to NRLN Inc., and mail to PO Box 69051, Baltimore, MD 21264-9051.
Stay healthy in 2025
This is the time of year for resolutions. For retirees, let me suggest that the most important resolution you can make for the year 2025 is STAY ON YOUR FEET!
This simple phrase has two meanings and they are both relevant.
- First, try to spend more of your time moving around rather than sitting.
- The second, avoid falls. Falls are a main cause of morbidity and disability in the elderly.
More than one-fourth of persons 65 years of age or older fall each year, and in half of such cases the falls are recurrent. The risk doubles or triples in the presence of cognitive impairment or history of previous falls.
Read all about it here.
Another article from the Mayo Clinic outlines some simple tips for avoiding falls.
Joe Sciulli
Chapter President
Joe Sciulli, Vice President – Information Technology/Databases CHAPTER PRESIDENT | Joe began his career with Western Electric in 1957 as a field engineer in the Defense Activities Division, which served as the prime contractor for the SAGE Air Defense System and had responsibility for installation and system testing of the system nationwide. He worked in computer and information technology assignments in Kansas City and Newark, NJ. In 1974 he moved to the Chicago area where he was responsible for the startup of the Niles, MI, Materials Management Center and nationwide planning for Western Electric’s installation force. In 1977, he became Director of Operations for the Central Region, and in 1979 moved to the Denver Works, where he was Director of Manufacturing. In 1982, he became Executive Vice President of the Teletype Corporation in Skokie, Il. Subsequently he served as Operations Vice President for AT&T’s computer business. He has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and attended the Sloan School at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He retired in 1989 and served as a Director and webmaster for the Lucent Retirees Organization for 18 years. He lives in Elgin, IL.
