Verizon latest to suspend pensions

Verizon latest to suspend pensions

By Adam GellerNEW YORK, Associated Press


12/13/2005

THE MEMO to workers made the changes sound almost upbeat: "Your Work, Your Rewards, Your Verizon," it read. But to some workers at Verizon Communications Inc., the company's announcement this past week that it will freeze the pensions of 50,500 managers is nothing but an employer breaking a decades-old promise to its own people.

"We're all good people here," said Maureen Aeckerle, a 25-year Verizon veteran in Maryland, her voice breaking. "And to be treated this way is just unacceptable."

Aeckerle and her co-workers are hardly alone. More large companies are moving to freeze or terminate their pension plans. While most companies that have done so up to now have been struggling financially, a growing number resemble Verizon — healthy, profitable companies looking for another way to cut costs and reduce risks.

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"What we're trying to do is ensure future success for HP, for our shareholders and for our employees and to do that, we have to create an industry-competitive cost structure," said Ryan Donovan, a spokesman for Hewlett-Packard.

But pension advocates say such changes amount to a compensation cut for experienced workers who devoted years to companies knowing that a pension was part of the deal.

More:

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_3304738?source=rss

Don't they have contracts? Or is the the kind of contract I always have to sign, that basically says "We the rich fucks holding all the cards reserve the right to break our promises, change our minds, and rewrite this lip-service contract anytime we feel like..."

Verizon wireless is old CDMA cell-tech anyway.

Too bad for all those loyal employees who are getting the shaft, however.

Verizon boycott anyone??

I'm planning to get a new cell phone deal in March when my contract expires, and I was looking into Verizon. That's not going to happen now.

These pensions were started as a way to avoid giving raises so that the middle class worker would stay with an employer. Instead of moving on to another company that paid better, middle class workers would stay at a low paying job in the hopes of getting good retirement benefits. The corporations made out by delaying hikes in wages and got to keep the employee without giving him an increase in pay. If they just paid the worker some of what they pay the CEO then maybe they wouldn't need those pensions. But of course now with the right wing wackos in charge the middle class gets no raises and no pensions. What a sweet deal for the corporations.

Companies figure your pension contribution as part of your salary.
When they take that away, you essentially take a pay cut.

freezing or terminating government pensions

we have all known it. We cannot endure without a healthy thriving middle class and the elimination of pensions and other workers benefits and rights is going to take us down in less than two generations. We are going to be a nation of super rich and super poor, with most living on the air of credit that one hopes will never be called in.

I swear I saw that thread here somewhere yesterday. I forsee more and more companies doing this. I know our company use to give us a sort of free pension account which they have done away with. They increased our 401k match and we can make it back but only if we drop another 5% of our salary into it to get the increased match.

My husband works for a large corporation, and we are very fortunate that for the last 24.5 years, he's had the luxury of knowing that at the end of the rainbow lies his pension plan and savings plan. To reiterate, we feel fortunate that he is one of the few lucky people to have been able to stay in his job for this long, and to have a company match contributions to 401K, stock, etc. We also have a health plan that will stay with us, in some part, until we die.

When he turns 55, he can snatch it all and move on. I hate living my life looking forward to the future, but that's exactly what I'm doing, because of hearing about these corporations that change the rules at the drop of a hat without any thought to how these changes affect long-time employees.

I can't wait for my Verizon contract to run out. When it does, I'll tell them exactly why I'm leaving for another provider.