Open Enrollment for both our active and retired members will run from Wednesday November 7, 2012 to Wednesday November 21, 2012, at 11:59 PM.

Attached are several documents from Verizon Regarding the annual enrollment:

• Your Benefits Connected – Active
• Your Benefits Connected – Retired -Post 91
• Your Benefits Connected – Retired – 1986 -1991
• Pre 1986 Retiree – Letter to HCN Participants
• What’s Changing -2013 and Beyond
• 2013 Annual Enrollment Presentation
• Welcome Letter to Employees –HRA
• Health Care Spending Account
• Dependent Care Spending Account

Summary of Benefits and Coverage:

• Option 563 – MEP HC PPO – Medicare
• Option 563 – MEP HC PPO
• Option 808 – Capital DistPhysicians Health – PHN
• Option 814 – National EPO
• Option 815 – Anthem HCN
• Option 815M -Anthem HCN – Medicare
• Option 817 – UHC Passport
• Option 822 – Emblem Health
• Option 825 -Blue Alliance NY
• Option 827 – Independent Health
• Option 843 – Univera Healthcare NY
• Option 847 – Aetna Inc HMO

Health Plan Evaluator

• Option 563 – MEP HC PPO – Medicare
• Option 563 – MEP HC PPO
• Option 808 – Capital Dist Physicians Health – PHN
• Option 814 – National EPO
• Option 815 – Anthem HCN
• Option 815M -Anthem HCN – Medicare
• Option 817 – UHC Passport
• Option 822 – Emblem Health
• Option 825 -Blue Alliance NY
• Option 827 – Independent Health
• Option 843 – Univera Healthcare NY
  
• Option 847 – Aetna Inc HMO

Important Information You Should Know

• There are changes to all Medical plan options and prescription drug coverage and you should review all the material before making decisions.

• YOU must go online and certify that neither you nor your covered dependents use tobacco.

• If you do NOT certify, you will be defaulted into the Tobacco user category and you will pay $600 more for medical coverage.

• Tobacco users can complete a Tobacco Cessation Program which will qualify them for the $600 reduction.

• You must complete the Health Assessment before December 31, 2012, through Benefit Connection to qualify for the $100 deduction for medical coverage. The Health Assessment is a simple, confidential questionnaire which takes about 10 minutes to complete. Starting November 7, 2012, you can take the Health Assessment, accessible through Benefits Connections.   (www.verizon.com/benefitsconnection )

• If you are happy with your current health plan and want to continue it, there is nothing you need to do but you still must complete the Health Assessment questionnaire and certify that neither you nor your covered dependents use tobacco to qualify for the deductions.

• Any Time Enrollment is no longer available – Changes can ONLY be made during Open Enrollment with the exemption of a Qualified Status Change. Examples of a Qualified Status Change are adding a spouse if you get married, added a child when there is a birth of new baby.

• EPO is no longer open to new enrollments. If someone who now has the EPO chooses another plan then they will no longer be able to re-enroll in the EPO in the future.

• For retirements January 1, 2013 and later, if you are enrolled in an HMO/EPO at retirement, you may continue in it as long as it is offered and/or until Medicare –eligible.

• If you are not enrolled in an HMO/EPO at retirement, you cannot enroll in an HMO/EPO as a retiree.

New Benefit Center:

Starting with Annual Enrollment, Verizon will transition to Zerox HR Solutions. Hewitt will no longer handle Verizon Benefits after December 31, 2012. The NEW Verizon Benefit Center can be reached at 1-855-4VzBens (1-855-489-2367).

Access 2013 Annual Enrollment information online at Benefits Connections: www.verizon.com/benefitsconnection

You should continue to call the current Benefits Center (1-877-4VZBens) 1-877-489-2367 until December 31, 2012 for 2012 benefits.

If  you do not have internet access or prefer to call the Benefit Center:

If you need any printed materials mailed to your home, call the Verizon Benefits Center at 1-855-4VzBens (1-855-489-2367) as soon as possible.

Reminder:

You MUST complete the Health Assessment questionnaire and you must go online and certify that neither you nor your covered dependents use tobacco in order to qualify for the premium reductions.

Source: CWA District 1

Stand Up For Cablevision 99%

Cablevision’s Brooklyn workers are tired of their poor working conditions, lousy healthcare coverage and sham retirement plans. While the 99% at Cablevision are trying to make ends meet, the top six executives raked in $75 million in 2010 and the company pulled in $361 million in profits. Cablevision’s workers are demanding the right to join a union and negotiate a fair contract that will provide the job security and compensation necessary to support their families.

Check out their website: www.thecablevision99.org and ‘like’ their Facebook page, cwabrooklynvision. The committee is hanging tough despite a scortched earth anti union campaign.

District 1 received the decision in the Verizon Business layoff case and unfortunately we lost the arbitration.

Follow the link below to view the unfavorable award issued by Arbitrator Tillem.

Verizon Business Layoff Award

Strike Related Discipline Cases

Rally to Support Occupy Wall Street! Wed, Oct 5th @ 4:30

Occupy Wall Street protesters are fighting to make the rich pay their fair share – and for working people everywhere, including at Verizon. CWA will rally with community groups and other unions at Foley Square, (Duane St and Centre St) starting at 4:30pm. Join the march!

Yesterday, the National Executive Board of the Communications Workers of America voted unanimously to endorse the Occupy Wall Street protests that began three weeks ago in New York and have now spread to cities across the country. Tomorrow, our members will join with thousands of New Yorkers who are taking to the streets for the labor and community day of solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement. 

Martin Luther King famously wrote after the Montgomery bus boycott that Rosa Parks’ pivotal role in the historic struggle for civil rights came because she “had been tracked down by the zeitgeist—the spirit of the time.”   He meant that the time for a civil rights revolution had come, and that Rosa Parks, by her simple act of sitting down in a Montgomery bus, became the embodiment of that urgent movement.

The young people who have Occupied Zuccotti Park have captured the spirit of our times. They have given voice to the frustration that Americans feel after watching Wall Street recklessness and greed destroy our economy, and millions of jobs along with it. They have tapped the anger of those who have watched Washington shower billions in bailouts on Wall Street, while ignoring the jobs crisis on Main Street; corporations ring up record profits while middle-class jobs disappear; and taxes slashed again and again for the wealthy while income inequality soars. 

At CWA, we have seen these same forces first hand. Verizon and Verizon Wireless, which make billions in profits and use loopholes to avoid paying federal corporate income taxes, have proposed destroying middle class jobs of 45,000 workers – even as the pay and bonuses for their top executives grows to the hundreds of millions. 

Like the protests in Madison, the Occupy Wall Street activists have used courage, creativity, and social media to create an urgently needed movement. We are proud to stand with them, and join them in the streets.

From District One

Workers’ Champion Ed Schultz Will Join Call

CWA’s next “virtual union meeting,” a national town hall by phone and Internet for stewards and all interested members, is scheduled for Thursday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m. EDT.

We’ll talk about our next steps and hear about recent successes, such as the big win CWA members helped make possible in upstate New York, sending a pro-worker candidate to Congress in a special election. We’ll also get an update from New Jersey on the bargaining battle there and from Ohio, where CWA members are building coalitions and circulating petitions to overturn a new law stripping collective bargaining rights from public workers.

Also speaking will be MSNBC and radio host Ed Schultz. An impassioned supporter of workers and unions, Schultz was the first national media figure to report from Wisconsin when the capitol protests began in February.

Please spread the word in your locals and plan to join thousands of your CWA brothers and sisters June 16, at 7:30 p.m. EDT. Visit www.cwaaction.org to register for the call. Prior to the event, you’ll receive an email with call-in instructions.

The reimbursement for child care provided by the DCRF will be extended through May 2011.  Originally, the Regional W/F Committee thought the funds would be depleted after the April 2011 payout, but by moving some available money from other projects into the DCRF we were able to provide an additional months payout.