November 1, 2005
Mimi Hull, President
ASSOCIATION OF U S WEST RETIREES
AUSWR Board Members and general
membership
This update concerns the Kerber v.
Qwest case (Pension Death
Benefits case). After this case was filed,
numerous AUSWR members who retired after January
1, 2004 and are no longer eligible for the
Pension Death Benefit due to the company's
unfair change to the pension plan rules asked
that they be considered and included in this
lawsuit. Therefore, your retiree organization
and the original named Plaintiffs, Edward Kerber
and Nelson Phelps, decided the right course of
action would be to expand this case in hopes to
protect the rights of hundreds of recent
retirees.
On October 25, 2005, a formal request
was filed with the Denver Federal Court seeking
permission to add three additional persons to be
named Plaintiffs: Joanne West of South Jordan,
Utah; Nancy Meister of Plymouth, Minnesota; and
Thomas Ingemann of Newport, Minnesota. Each
person retired after January 1, 2004 after
completing many years of employment service and
the Pension Death Benefit was taken away. In at
least one instance, almost at the proverbial
eleventh hour, the company took away the Pension
Death Benefit. Your can download and read
the proposed Second Amended Complaint that was
submitted to the Court by going to this URL at
the
AUSWR website: http://www.uswestretiree.org/MotiontoFileSecondAmendedComplaint.pdf
The trial court judge - Federal Judge Marcia
Krieger - will have to make a ruling on whether
the existing case can be expanded. I don't see
any impediment. Of course, Qwest's legal
counsel will surely exercise the right to object
and argue against our request.
It should be rather obvious that your retiree
organization, perhaps the most active in the
nation, is trying to look out for the best
interest of all U S WEST/Qwest
retirees, both management and nonmanagement.
The Kerber legal challenge is but one
example. Certainly, all of you are aware of
AUSWR's prior efforts to protect medical
benefits and success in obtaining a
written guarantee of health care coverage for
tens of thousands of persons who retired before
January 1991. Now, AUSWR has embarked upon
another major legal challenge.
Please keep in mind that this litigation about
the Pension Death Benefits is separate from any
potential issue concerning life insurance. As
you know, for many decades, a stable feature of
the Qwest Pension Plan (and predecessor plans
such as the AT&T Pension Plan) has been
a "Pension Death Benefit" funded in the pension
plan and payable as an entitlement upon the
death of a retiree receiving a service pension
and delivered to his or her surviving spouse or
dependent beneficiaries. Qwest and its
predecessors - U S WEST, AT&T, Mountain Bell,
Northwest Bell and Northwestern Bell -- have a
long history of treating the Pension Death
Benefit as an “accrued” or protected pension
benefit payable from trust fund assets.
However, in September 2003, Qwest formally
announced to AUSWR leaders that “Qwest is
considering eliminating the death benefit for
all retirees regardless of their retirement
date.” Qwest prepared several signed letters
dated September 2, 2003 ready to send to
all
retirees to report the Pension Death
Benefit would be eliminated effective October 1,
2003. You can go to this URL at the AUSWR
website to see the letters that Qwest senior
leadership had planned to sent out:
http://www.uswestretiree.org/September2,2003%20Letters.pdf
Had your retiree organization leaders not raised
such a ruckus and solicited a massive letter
writing campaign, surely, Qwest senior
leadership would have immediately gone forward
with their devious plan. Although the company
decided to hold off eliminating the Pension
Death Benefit for all retirees, they decided to
eliminate the benefit for those who retired
after January 2004. Yet, all of those
persons were counting on the Pension Death
Benefit for financial and estate planning
purposes. And, the threat remains that Qwest
senior leadership or some cadre of leadership
taking over
after the present CEO
Notebaert regime could try to eliminate the
Pension Death Benefit. By eliminating the
Pension Death Benefit, company senior leaders
look "good" to Wall Street, as they claim credit
for company savings or a curtailment income
gain, an odd accounting construct.
Accordingly, the present lawsuit stems
from unsuccessful efforts to get Qwest senior
leadership to recognize the Pension Death
Benefit as a protected pension benefit that
can neither be eliminated nor
reduced. Qwest senior leadership contends
the Pension Death Benefit is at-risk and can be
taken away, pursuant to the present reservation
of rights language which language was set forth
in the PLAN after Named Plaintiffs Ed Kerber and
Nelson Phelps and tens of thousands of
others retired. Now, among other arguments, we
are contending in the present lawsuit that Qwest
acted improperly by taking away the Pension
Death Benefit for those persons who retired
after January 1, 2004. While the present
lawsuit outcome is very uncertain and
the process may take at least several years, I
trust all affected retirees, both management and
nonmanagement and those who retired after
January 1, 2004, will support both AUSWR's
financial effort to pay the costs of this
lawsuit and the emotional efforts of the Named
Plaintiffs: Ed Kerber, Nelson Phelps, Joanne
West, Nancy Meister and Thomas Ingemann.
Curtis