On Strike, Day 5, Rally at The Today Show. Seven months without a contract.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go

NY Labor Relations Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Please advise your clients with NY volunteers that they can notify the accepted volunteers.

The over subscription will not be accepted.  Those employees will remain on the payroll.

Acceptance and denial letters have gone out in the mail.

As a reminder, the off-payroll date for accepted volunteers is 4/1/12.
_______________________________________________________________________

See also:
Company Declares Surplus of 829 Positions from Across New York 2/28/2012

Verizon Surplus EIPP 2/25/2012

Verizon Booklet on Your Pension Plan Benefits – download here Get all the facts!

You may be hearing a lot about how the current interest rates will affect your Pension or cash buy-out. Read the chart below.

Verizon Plan, Current and Future Interest Rates.

Download the Interest Rates chart click here.

Pension Benefit Guaranty (PBGC) Corporation, a U.S. Goverernment Agency. Current monthly rates.

Accessing Your Benefits Information

The summary plan description (SPD) is available online on Your Benefits Resources Web site.

Generally, the SPD on Your Benefits Resources Web site is the most up to date. To access it, go to: www.verizon.com/benefits

Verizon’s eWeb on About You at: http://myeweb.verizon.com/eweb/myportal/AboutYou, where you can link to Your Benefits Resources. Once you have logged on to Your Benefits Resources, from the “Health, Insurance…” or “Pension” tab, select “Summary Plan Descriptions” from the right-hand navigation bar.

You also can access your personalized benefits information: On Your Benefits Resources Web site or by speaking with a Verizon Benefits Center representative. Toll free number 1-877-489-2367, hours 9-5 Monday-Friday.

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo has removed legislation from his executive budget that would have protected telecommunications companies offering Internet phone service from regulation.

Unions and consumer advocacy groups had opposed the bill, which had the support of companies like Verizon and Time Warner Cable that argued the absence of the law provided an uncertain regulatory environment.

New York state currently doesn’t regulate Internet phone service, although it heavily regulates traditional wire line phone service. Verizon is the largest provider in the state.

Over recent years, the telecommunications industry has pushed for legislation across the country to prevent states from regulating Internet phone service. They argue that such regulation would stifle innovation and competition and would be nearly impossible because of the wide array of players such as Vonage and Skype that don’t have a physical network in the state.

Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto confirmed that the bill was no longer included in the budget, but he said the governor did not immediately have a comment on why the legislation did not survive.

The Communications Workers of America, which represents Verizon workers, issued a statement on Friday that makes it appear that the Assembly leadership may have played a role in the legislation’s demise.

“We’re thankful that Albany stood up to the powerful telecom industry,” said Pete Sikora, CWA’s political director for New York state. “Because of the leadership of Speaker (Sheldon) Silver, Chairman (James) Brennan and their Assembly colleagues, important consumer protections will be preserved, as will upstate jobs.”

Verizon still gets a significant amount of its revenues from its traditional phone service, but it has increased the alternative phone offerings it offers as it seeks to compete with cell phone and cable companies.

“Verizon is very disappointed that New York’s lawmakers, who want the public to believe that New York is open for business, will not be acting on this important measure to modernize the state’s outdated telecommunications laws in this year’s budget,” said Verizon spokesman John Bonomo.

The industry has maintained that the legislation would have clarified that Internet phone, also known as Voice-over-Internet Protocol, or VoIP, is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, not the states.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/VoIP-bill-plug-pulled-3429799.php#ixzz1qEvhBjXw

Earlier this year, Verizon Wireless submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission to purchase additional spectrum from four cable providers. Verizon Wireless is playing a real-life game of Monopoly – teaming up with Comcast, Time Warner, and other cable providers to create a “quadruple play” behemoth and lock consumers into even higher prices.

Don’t let Verizon Wireless and the cable companies end cable competition as we know it — sign our petition against this bad deal for consumers.

The cable market shouldn’t be divvied up in secret by a handful of executives in a corporate boardroom.

Competition is essential for consumers to get the fairest prices, the best service, and the most choices. If this deal goes through, Verizon will have no incentive to continue building its FiOS high-speed network into new areas, so consumers will be stuck with limited choices for their cable service.

Less FiOS also means fewer jobs building, maintaining, servicing, and installing the network. This deal will create a corporate behemoth that will use exclusive quad-play market power to shrink its future workforce.

What’s more, Verizon Wireless and the cable companies are pushing the Federal Communications Commission to approve this deal without providing full disclosure about its specifics. The documents they provided to the FCC are heavily redacted, so we don’t even know the full extent of the risks to cable competition.

Stand with thousands of consumers across the country and tell the FCC to block this bad deal: www.cwa-union.org/nomonopoly