Chapter President’s Message
Joe Sciulli
Chapter President
SEPTEMBER 2024
Our Chapter is part of the National Retiree Legislative Network (the NRLN), which actively pursues legislative changes that will improve the retirement for its members, and for all retirees. The NRLN’s twice annual meeting was held in Washington DC on September 15 through 18, 2024. In addition to a Board Meeting, the NRLN uses this opportunity to actively pursue in…
MEDICARE OPEN ENROLLMENT
We are approaching that time of the year when we have the opportunity to change health care coverage. In the next few weeks, we recommend the following steps:
- Review your current healthcare plan. Premiums, deductibles, co-pays, annual maximums, accessibility to doctors and facilities are all important factors to consider.
- Review your healthcare expenditures for the current year.
- Review any changes in coverage or benefits to your current plan and how they may impact on your future expenditures.
The NRLN homepage contains articles, links and videos on this subject. In addition, our Chapter has pages designed by our Benefits Team to assist you in selecting healthcare coverage.
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 2024 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 and Medicare would be on the chopping block if “fiscal commission” bills are passed. The NRLN opposes the commissions that would meet behind closed doors to create its cost-cutting recommendations to be “fast tracked” – no amendments in the House or Senate and only yes or no votes. Instead, members of Congress should be held accountable for properly funding Social Security and 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 2024
This is the time of year for resolutions. For retirees, let me suggest that the most important resolution you can make for the year 2024 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.
Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Information for 2024
Several of you have written me asking about a cost of living raise in the pension. You point out that the pension trust is overfunded, and inflation has taken its toll, particularly on long-time retirees. And it’s true that one dollar in 1990 purchasing power requires $2.73 today.
We have raised the question with Nokia.
Their answer is that there are no plans for a cost-of-living raise. They point out that retirees prior to 3/1/90 do not pay for healthcare and life insurance.
We will keep monitoring the pension trust numbers in 2023.
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.
- National Retiree Legislative Network
- Email Contact
Our Chapter is part of the National Retiree Legislative Network (the NRLN), which actively pursues legislative changes that will improve the retirement for its members, and for all retirees.
The NRLN’s twice annual meeting was held in Washington DC on September 15 through 18, 2024. In addition to a Board Meeting, the NRLN uses this opportunity to actively pursue in person meetings with Senators and Representatives to explain the urgency of the changes it is advocating. Although many of the meetings are with legislative assistants, they are still very important because much of the groundwork for change starts at that level.
The NRLN asked that our chapter participate, particularly asking Herb Zydney who is a New York resident and thus can gain access as a “constituent”. With the help of NRLN leadership, he was able to spend about half hour each with the staff of Senator Chuck Schumer, Democratic Majority Leader, and Representative Jerrold Nadler (NY-12), until recently Chair of the House Judiciary Committee – both very central to moving legislation forward in Congress.
With the participation of Ed Beltram, NRLN VP of Communications, the goals of the NRLN were explained in person, coordinated with the positions that these legislators have and are supporting.
DOWNLOAD a copy of Protecting Retirees in Pension Risk Transfers – “De-Risking” | Talking Points
Herb Zydney, Lucent/Nokia Chapter member and a New York constituent of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, meets with staff members Lizzy Burke and Sohil Khurana.
Jay Kuhnie (right) President, NCRO, along with Rich Brown and Kathie Neal, NCRO Leaders, discuss Pension Risk Transfers (De-risking) with Blake Nolan, Deputy Chief of Staff for Rep. Van Buchanan (FL-16).
McKenzie Fields, Legislative Director for Rep. Nancy Pelosi (CA-11) meets with Hector Saenz (left) President, IBM/Kyndryl Retirees Chapter and John deCastro, Lucent/Nokia Retirees Chapter member and a Rep. Pelosi constituent.
Jim Odle (Right), President, DuPont Retirees Chapter, discusses retirement issues with James Danegger, Legislative Assistant for Senator Marsha Blackburn (TN)
Judy Stenberg, NRLN Region Vice President and Cindy Persitz, Detroit Edison Alliance of Retirees (DEAR), meet with staff members for the Senate Special Committee on Aging.
Mary Foley, (Right) President AASBCR and Tom Gray, AASBCR Board Member, meet with Lucy Schmitz, Legislative Assistant for Rep. Sean Casten (IL-06)
Three examples: (Click below for all Talking Points)
- Pensions: Protecting seniors‘ rights to the retirement pensions they’ve earned by preventing potential harms from the growing practice of corporations transferring pension obligations to insurance companies, which loses the protection of ERISA and the PBGC Congress needs to amend ERISA to significantly improve the rules governing fiduciary contracts, including re-insurance to protect retirees in case of a default.
- Medicare Advantage: Senior health care is dependent on a cost-effective Medicare program that is affordable to taxpayers. There is ample evidence that the subsidies to Medicare Advantage are at higher cost than Medicare fee for service and do not cover all providers. By eliminating the subsidies, Medicare beneficiaries could make a choice under a competitive umbrella that is not subsidized by general taxpayer revenues. Herb was able to quote examples from our Chapter members’ experience, such as the loss of hospitals under the Nokia Medicare Advantage plan.
- Close the Social Security’s funding gap – but not by cutting benefits. Close the funding gap through a modest increase in payroll tax rate for employees and employers and make all wages subject to the tax.
