Open Enrollment begins October 23, 2013

The 2014 Annual Open Enrollment dates are as follows:

Active Members: October 23, 2013 to November 6, 2013
Retired Members: November 7, 2013 to November 21, 2013

Note: Retirees can call starting November 1, 2013
Retirees can continue to make changes up through November 30, 2013 to be effective January 1, 2014.

Members who want to continue with their current health plan you don’t need to do anything.

Anytime enrollment was discontinued last year and is not available. Changes can only be made during Open Enrollment with the exception of a Qualified Status Change. Examples of a Qualified Status Change are adding a spouse if you get married or adding a child when there is a birth.

Any member who completed a Health Assessment in 2012 or who completes one at any time through 2013 will receive the $100 Health Assessment credit in 2014. There is not need to complete a second assessment if you already did it during that timeframe.

Attached is a Market Summary for Active/Pre Medicare Plans and the Market Summary for Medicare Plans, These are the plans that are available for 2014.
For the complete memo on Open Enrollment Click here
Market Summary and listing of Plans for Active Members Click here
Market Summary and listing of Plans for Medicare Plans Click here

Downtown NYC, June 2013

By Daniel Geiger – Crain’s

The communications giant will relocate its headquarters to 1095 Sixth Ave. from 140 West St. The company also announced the $274 million sale of the top 21 stories of its downtown tower for residential conversion.

Downtown stalwart Verizon Communications Inc. is leaving its headquarters at 140 West St., the property built 87 years ago to house its predecessor New York Telephone, and moving up to 1095 Sixth Ave., across from Bryant Park. On Wednesday, the communications giant announced that it had sold the upper portion of the 31-story, 1.8 million-square-foot downtown building for $274 million. It will retain 10 floors at the base of the property, where some 600 employees will work.

Magnum Real Estate Group bought the top 21 stories. Investor Ben Shaoul, president of Magnum, plans to convert those floors to residential condominiums.

The sale will require Verizon to relocate about 1,100 employees, most of whom are customer-service representatives, to another property it owns at 395 Flatbush Ave., in Brooklyn. Crain’s first reported that the communications giant was planning to move large numbers of staffers from its West Street home, across Vesey Street from the World Trade Center back in April.

Verizon’s sale of a partial interest in the building is in line with other property sales it has made in recent years, in which it has downsized facilities and raked in millions of dollars from selling off the excess real estate. The company, for instance, sold off a large portion of 375 Pearl St. in 2011 for $120 million. In that deal, it retained just three floors in that 1.1 million-square-foot property, where it condensed telecom operations and equipment that used to take up nearly the entire tower. It also sold off the bulk of 1095 Sixth Ave., the company’s new headquarters property, where it retained seven floors in a condo ownership interest. Verizon stationed its headquarters in that building before selling it off in 2005.
Read the full story.

Also see: Verizon Reaches Agreement on Sale of Portion of Its Historic Building at 140 West St.

By Candice Ruud/ Newsday

Verizon officials unveiled a plan Tuesday to bring fiber-optic cable to western Fire Island, where public outcry has swelled over a decision to not replace the landlines destroyed last fall. After superstorm Sandy knocked out miles of underground cables in western Fire Island, Verizon — the barrier island’s only landline carrier — started replacing them with Voice Link, a home phone service that operates off the wireless network.
But in comments to the state Public Service Commission, the Federal Communications Commission and at public meetings, residents blasted Voice Link, which they said provided unreliable service in an emergency, did not come with Internet capability and was an inadequate substitute for landlines.

The carrier heard customers’ concerns and decided to offer another alternative with data capability, said Tom Maguire, Verizon senior vice president for national operations support. “In today’s competitive marketplace, it’s all about making sure you can take care of customers. . . . Interestingly, on Fire Island, there is no place else, so we listened to our customers. . . . So we think that fiber is the best course,” Maguire said. “It was pretty apparent that we wanted to do something beyond Voice Link and the wireless network, so we think that fiber is the best course.”

There are about 600 Voice Link customers on Fire Island. Verizon customers on the western part of the island will have three choices — they can keep Voice Link for voice service only, or they can have voice-over-fiber service installed. Customers who want Internet can request the Double Play package of FiOS Internet and FiOS digital voice. FiOS TV will not be offered as part of the package, Maguire said. Television on the island is provided through satellite dish services.

The office of Sen. Charles Schumer, who criticized Verizon’s plan to abandon copper wire on the island, announced the plan Tuesday in a news release. Maguire said Verizon and Schumer worked together on the compromise.

Read the full story here.

Important Information on the October 3, 2013 VCF Registration Deadline

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund (Fund) is approaching an important deadline. Anyone who knew or had reason to know of physical harm or illness resulting from the 9/11 attacks before October 3, 2011 is required to register by October 3, 2013. Please click here for more information and frequently asked questions about the filing deadlines.

Registration preserves your right to file a claim in the future (before the Fund ends on October 3, 2016). Registration is not the same as filing a claim and does not commit you to file a claim even if you have registered. If you are uncertain about when your illness began, register by the October 3, 2013 deadline to preserve your right to file a claim.

Registration is easy and requires answering only a few questions. Click here to register now.

Union members show their support for Bill deBlasio at 30 Rock. Click on photo to view album.

CWA District 1 President Chris Shelton – Letter of support for Bill DeBlasio

A message from Lowell

Welcome to the New Verizon.

Today marks a major milestone for our company. We announced today that we have reached a definitive agreement with Vodafone to acquire their 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless. This is more than a financial transaction – it’s a transformation.

Verizon is unlike any other company. Our extraordinary assets will allow us to attack what we expect to be a $250 billion market opportunity across our platforms by 2017. Soon we will be even more efficient, agile and market responsive. There will be no organizational boundaries to developing solutions that serve our customers best, while delivering superior returns for our shareholders.

At the same time, our competitors are not standing still, so we must recognize this moment as a great opportunity to take a leap forward in our strategy and act with a sense of urgency to eliminate any barriers to our performance while continuing to deliver for our customers. Only by working together will we unlock the full potential of a New Verizon.

We expect to complete the approval process and close the transaction in the first quarter of 2014. Before that time, I have every expectation that we will continue to achieve our target performance for the rest of the year and maintain our high standards for network quality and customer service.

Your consistently high performance has undoubtedly made Verizon the company it is today. This announcement is just another example of the value you all have built, and puts extra responsibility on all of us to keep delivering the superior performance.

Thank you for your continued hard work and dedication. Let’s remain focused on our priorities and our objectives, and continue to provide our customers with outstanding service.

Please join me and Fran Shammo for a brief webcast Tuesday at 11 a.m. ET so we can further discuss this historic milestone.

Source: Verizon

Forbes: Verizon-Vodafone $130B Deal Signals Mounting Consolidation And Competition

This Labor Day, we are celebrating some victories and looking ahead to big challenges. We know that times are tough and bargaining can be brutal. But we’re encouraged, because we’re armed with a strategy that enables us to build our power by building a movement of allies – civil rights activists, labor, greens, community organizers, people of faith, immigrant rights groups, the LGBT community and others — who share our vision of social and economic justice.

We know that we can’t reach our goals of secure jobs and bargaining rights on our own. No one group can go it alone. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its allies are too entrenched, too wealthy, too able to exert pressure and control over our democracy. But by working together, like-minded people are bringing about real change.

That’s why National People’s Action’s Sunflower Community partners with our local and T-Mobile activists in Wichita, Kansas, to help win workers’ rights and real immigration reform. That’s why CWA locals in North Carolina are joining the “moral Monday” demonstrations against that state’s assault on voting rights. That’s why CWA members are working with the Sierra Club, Citizens Trade Campaign and Jobs with Justice activists to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership that’s a bad deal for workers, consumers and the environment. That’s why CWA activists have teamed up with faith leaders to support fast-food workers’ strikes for fair wages in St. Louis and other cities. And it’s why 2,000 CWAers joined the crowd at the 50th anniversary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, to remind our nation that the American dream is not a reality.

In Unity,

Larry Cohen

President, CWA

For a long time in New York City, we’ve had anti-labor Mayors. This election, we can change that by electing a champion for working families: Bill de Blasio.

I’ve known Bill for longer than a decade. No elected official in New York has worked harder or done more for CWA members and our families than Bill de Blasio. He is our closest ally and best friend. And now we can elect him Mayor of New York.

I can’t tell you how important it would be for working people to have a true progressive, pro-labor Mayor. Instead of facing an anti-union Mayor like Bloomberg, who handed a massive city contract to Verizon, as we were on strike, Mayor de Blasio would actually help CWA members. Imagine that! A Mayor who actually wants to create and protect good jobs – we haven’t seen that in a long time.

The next Mayor will negotiate municipal contracts for hundreds of thousands of workers, including CWA members. De Blasio, far more than the other leading candidates, understands that City workers deserve fair and just treatment.

Bill de Blasio understands that CWA members such as traffic agents and city agency and HHC workers are particularly undercompensated. He’s got the pro-labor record to show that he is the most likely to negotiate fairly and honestly of any of the candidates.

Bill de Blasio’s campaign is focused on the growing inequality in New York City between the rich – and everyone else. He offers the most sweeping rejection of the Bloomberg/Giuliani era.

When other candidates knuckled under to corporate interests, Bill de Blasio stood up for paid sick time for all New Yorkers; mandated development of affordable housing as part of any new development; and living wages.

Bill de Blasio took on Bloomberg’s union-busting and led the campaign against Bloomberg’s third term power grab.

He is the only candidate willing to end the “stop and frisk” era, the only candidate who would replace NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and pass a ban on racial profiling and establish an independent Inspector General to provide oversight over the NYPD.

Bill de Blasio’s taken on the rich and powerful his entire career, whether it’s been walking our picket lines countless times, passing legislation or speaking out in public against Bloomberg and Giuliani. That’s why I know that Bill de Blasio is the best choice for CWA members.

Thank you,
Chris Shelton
Vice President, CWA District 1