|
|
____________________________ NON PROFIT ORGANIZATION US Postage Paid Permit # 151 ____________________________
«NAME»
«STREET1»
«CITY» «STATE» «ZIP»
Chapter 305 Officers: Chapter
2911 Officers:
Jeanette Gaffer Chairperson Dan Alter
Barb Parrott Vice
Chairperson Sandra Poling
Hazel Sitko Recording
Sec.
Carol Davis Financial Sec. Steve
Bell
Dorothy Ward Sgt.
of Arms Don Steffen
Insurance Dan Alter 461-1383 and/or 918-4094 (
Chapter Meetings:
Chapter 305 1st Thursday of the month
@
Chapter 2911 2nd Thursday of the month @
December, 2007
We wish Everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New
Year
Negotiations:
At
this time negotiations with International Truck and Engine are at a standstill.
The strike began
“International
Truck and Engine has shredded our agreement, shipped our work out of the
country and trampled our nation’s labor laws,” said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. “When UAW
members are on strike for justice anywhere, they have the support of UAW
members everywhere -- and our entire union is standing shoulder to shoulder
with our members at ITE.”
I’m sad to
report that we have 3 UAW Retirees (SCABS)
( Contract workers)currently crossing the picket line and going in to work at
the Engineering Center on Meyer Rd. in
I guess with
some people the almighty dollar is more important than their fellow workers and
retir.ees
Chapter 2911
retiree
meetings have been postponed because
of the strike. When Local 2911 schedule their next membership meeting we will
also have a Chapter 2911 retiree meeting ½ hour prior to that regular
membership meeting as usual
Interesting
Medicare fact:
In
1992 Medicare monthly premiums were $31.80 per month. 8 years later at the end
of the Clinton Administration monthly premiums were $45.50. Now after 8 years
of G.W. Bush the monthly premiums have risen to $96.40 per month with almost
$20.00 of it coming since the inception of Medicare Part D and the Medicare
Advantage Plans in 2005. Each has cost
Medicare Billions of dollars per year. With the Drug companies getting richer.
INSURANCE:
We
can’t stress this enough, we are so fortunate and lucky that we have the Shy Supplemental Trust Plan.
Art
Shy and the UAW can’t be thanked enough for their efforts to secure this for
us.
As
you read recently in the Supplemental Trust newsletter mailed to you dated
October 2007 our retiree benefits and deductibles for 2008 will remain the
same as they are now. Furthermore, because of wise investing and management of
the fund it increased from the prior year almost $18 million even expenses went
up considerably during that time.
We
receive a lot of correspondence in the mail from International Truck and also
from others concerning health care. How do you know what is legitimate and what
needs to be answered?
It
can be confusing. We’ll try to clarify it some.
Correspondence
from International Truck and Engine Corp. should be read and if you’re not sure
if you need to act on it call us and ask. Examples:
1)
Last January you received a Spouse Verification packet from
International requesting we verify our spouse on our plan, this included
sending a copy of last years tax return. This was a requirement which had to be filled out and returned.
2)
Open Enrollment packet, this can be ignored by 99.9 % of retirees.
International Truck is required to send this info to us.
3)
Other Insurance company correspondence: Your Health Care coverage (Health,
Drugs, Vision, Dental, Hearing)
that you have through International Truck and
Engine and the Shy Supplemental Trust is all you need.
Fall Retiree
Luncheon:
The joint Chapter 305 and Chapter 2911 Retiree Luncheon
held on
We were most
fortunate to have our Region 3 Director, Mo Davison, in attendance along with
our Region 3 Retiree Rep., Brenda Upchurch. Mo brought us up to date on the all
of the things going on in
Brenda also gave
her usual good talk. She is deeply involved in the court cases protecting retiree
benefit, so other retirees can enjoy benefits similar to ours under the Shy
Agreement. She also spends countless hours traveling the 2 states for us UAW
retiree’s.
Brenda handles
all UAW retiree functions in
Retiree Dues:
In an effort to
continue this newsletter we have changed our method of printing and mailing. In
the past we sent the finished newsletter to a printer and they printed it,
addressed it and mailed it. We (volunteers) are now doing this ourselves and
will save a considerable amount of your Chapters money. This is where the
majority of your $2.00 per month retiree dues money goes to support this
newsletter. We would like to continue to send this newsletter to all of our
retirees, but it is expensive. Any retiree not now paying dues that would like
to, please call Dan Alter @ 260-918 4094 and I’ll gladly send you a form to
fill out. Space does not permit reprinting the form in this month’s bulletin
Local 2911
Website: http://www.uawlocal2911.org