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CWA: GE to End Retirement Income Giveaway for Board Members

Washington, D.C.--The Communications Workers of America has scored a victory for shareholders at General Electric Co., with GE agreeing to end a pension and life insurance benefit for new non-employee members of the board of directors. CWA has been spotlighting GE's inequitable treatment of retirees, pointing out that non-employee members of the board of directors are entitled to retirement income of $75,000 a year, plus full survivor's benefits for spouses, while many retired workers who made the company so successful still receive poverty level pensions.

In a letter to CWA President Morton Bahr, GE's associate corporate counsel indicated that the company was ending the pension and life insurance plan for new non-employee directors as of May 2001.

At GE's annual shareholder meetings, the CWA Pension Fund, representing CWA members and GE stockholders, has regularly submitted a resolution calling on the board of directors to end such benefits unless they are specifically submitted for shareholder approval. That resolution won 32 percent of voted shares at this year's meeting in Richmond, Va. Also supporting the CWA measure was the GE Retirees Justice Fund.

Some 17,000 members of IUE-CWA work at GE; CWA also represents broadcast employees and technicians at NBC, a division of GE.

Despite decades of employment at GE, many retirees continue to earn poverty level pensions, CWA has pointed out. Even with the pension increase announced in April 2000 -- the first since 1996 -- GE retirees are losing ground, because they have no cost of living provisions in their pensions and the value of their retirement benefits does not keep pace with inflation. Some who retired from GE before 1985 have seen their purchasing power drop by 45 percent, CWA noted.

GE's pension fund accounted for $1 billion of GE's $10.7 billion in profits last year. GE has made no contributions to the pension trust since 1987.



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