The Union and the Company have reached an agreement on an upgraded EIPP offer. We encourage all members interested in taking this offer, to begin to speak to a financial advisor and plan accordingly. The details of the offer are as follows –
With respect to any employees who elect to voluntarily leave the service of the Company pursuant to the Enhanced Income Protection Plan (EIPP) offer made on November TBD, 2014 (“the Offer”) under the terms of the Force Adjustment Plan of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement, the parties agree as follows:
A. One Time Supplemental Voluntary Termination Bonus
Those employees who leave the service of the Company pursuant to the Offer shall receive a lump sum amount of $40,000, less taxes and withholdings, in addition to the EIPP payment and related benefits and the voluntary termination bonus and continuation medical coverage to which the employee is otherwise eligible under the terms of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement.
B. Raising of Caps on EIPP Payment
Those employees with greater than 30 years of net credited service will have their EIPP payment calculation capped at forty years of service, rather than thirty years.
C. Waiver of Age-Based Pension Reductions for Early Commencement
The Pension Plan will be amended such that Service Pension eligible employees who leave the service of the Company pursuant to the Offer will not have the age-based reduction for early commencement, if any, applied to the calculation of their pension.
D. Lump Sum Interest Rate
The Pension Plan will be amended such that, regardless of the specific date on which an employee leaves the service of the Company pursuant to the Offer, the determination of the interest rate and mortality basis used for converting such employee’s single life annuity to a lump sum amount will be based on the better of (a) the applicable interest rate and mortality basis as of such employee’s elected pension commencement date following his or her actual separation from service or (b) the applicable interest rate and mortality basis as of a December 2014 pension commencement date, provided that such employee’s age will be determined in accordance with his or her elected pension commencement date rather than a December 2014 pension commencement date.
II. Employees who elect to leave the service of the Company pursuant to the Offer will be separated from the Company on one or more dates in 2014 and/or 2015 to be selected at the discretion of the Company. The Company, in its discretion, will determine how many employees will be separated on each date in each job title and work location. The Company will honor requests by seniority, to the extent consistent with the requirements of the business, when assigning the date on which each employee will be separated. Notwithstanding the provisions of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement, there shall be no layoffs in a title, work group and work location during the time period between the first and last off payroll dates if there are employees in the title, work group and work location who are designated by the Company to be separated in 2015.
III. Except as modified by this Memorandum of Agreement the Income Protection Plan provisions of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement shall apply.
IV. The Company agrees that through June 30, 2015 there will be no layoffs of Administrative Assistants, Special Assistants, Facility Assigners, Driver As or Driver Bs.
V. There will be no involuntary force transfers of over 35 miles pursuant to the Force Adjustment Plan through June 30, 2015, except to locations where the union demanded that the Company declare a surplus which are set forth in Attachment A. VI. There will be no office consolidations on or before June 30, 2015, except those consolidations announced by the Company prior to October 1, 2014.
VII. In relation to the Offer, the Company will use best efforts to ensure that individuals who request pension calculations receive their calculations within 14 days.
VIII. The two Wage Table 51 employees in the Traffic bargaining unit will be upgraded to Wage Table 31 effective XXXX.
IX. The titles that will receive the Offer are specified below:
Administrative Assistant 76
Building Equipment Mechanic 3
Central Office Technician 81
Customer Service Assistant 6
Driver A TBD
Driver B TBD
Equipment Installation Technician 5
Facilities Assigner 20
Fiber Customer Support Analyst 6
Fiber Network Technician 4
Material Attendant 3
Network Services Coordinator 11
Operator 12
Outside Plant Technician 28
Service Assistant 3
Service Representative 15
Special Assistant 31
Splice Service Technician 368
Toll Assigner 1
Translations Administrator 3
Transmission Technician 1