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(February 12, 2007)
Proudly representing retirees from the new AT&T
Midwest Region, SBC Midwest Region,
Ameritech, as well as the five Bell Companies
in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin
February 14, 2007
To all
AASBCR Members:
RESPONSE REQUESTED BY MARCH 14, 2007
PLEASE
CONSIDER ALLOWING US TO SEND YOU AN ACTION ALERT
VIA THE
NRLN CAPWIZ SYSTEM
WHY?
Your board of directors has determined that we need to continue to
actively work with members of Congress to protect our Health and
Pension benefits. By now you’ve heard the clamoring of change for
healthcare in Congress and by the President. While this is good, it
is also frightening. There will likely be new legislation introduced
this year which will impact these benefits. If we aren’t more active
and more vocal about getting our inputs and thoughts about pending
legislation across to our congressional representatives, they will
likely rely on corporate lobbyists to shade their views of what might
be good for retirees.
Because
of this, it may be necessary to ask that you write your Congressman or
Senator on a specific bill. We intend to notify you to do that via
the NRLN CAPWIZ program. By using the Capwiz system, it will allow us
to send an action alert e-mail to our members (you) residing in one or
several congressional districts where a Congressman needs to hear from
us about our views. It is a focused system that will allow us to
effectively educate an individual representative or their staff or
send to all congressmen if necessary.
And, it
works well! As an example, a legislator recently proposed putting an
amendment into a bill that caused some concerns with NRLN member
organizations. The proposed amendment would have allowed companies to
dip into pension plans more than they have. After hearing that, the
NRLN sent out to every member in his district who had their name,
e-mail and zip+4 code in the database a letter stating that they
needed to write or call this congressman. The next day, the
congressman changed his mind based on the information and input he got
directly from his NRLN constituents. So, we know it works.
We are
asking that you allow us to share your name, address, and e-mail
address with the NRLN – ONLY for the purpose of us using the
Capwiz mail utility for our members. As an organization, we have
promised to protect your privacy. The Board has debated this request
for over a year. In order to protect what we have, and to work for
what we THOUGHT we had when we retired, we feel we must be able to
mobilize the membership rapidly especially with the changes that we
expect are forthcoming in this Congress.
You can
choose to opt out of the e-mail alerts if you want. We hope that you
won’t and will be willing to help us with legislative efforts that
will help us all. Please consider the importance of this request and
the impact that future legislation may have on your benefits before
you choose to opt out. For those who want to actively participate in
sustaining our benefits, we’d like you to send us the zip+4 and
Congressional District in which you reside.
Please send your zip+4 information to our CTO/database
administrator at
vp2@aasbcr.org.
A response is requested by March 12, 2007.
Note: This is an opt out process and those who choose not to respond
in any way will be assumed to concur (opt in).
Sincerely,
Ray
Sternot
VP-Legislation
AASBCR
ZIP + 4 RESPONSE
FORM
______
I want to be included in the Capwiz system so I can receive an
occasional e-mail messages informing me of actions I might choose to
take to further our cause of protecting our Health and Pension
benefits.
Member
Name: _____________________________________
Member
e-mail address: ________________________________
Member
Address: ____________________________________
Member
State, Zip+4:__________________________________
Congressional District: _________________________________
______
I do not want to actively support AASBCR legislative efforts or
contact my congressman in order to help protect my healthcare and
pension benefits should it be deemed necessary by the AASBCR Board of
Directors or the NRLN to do so. I want to opt out of receiving NRLN
Healthcare/Pension Action E-Mail alerts.
Member
Name: _____________________________________
My
e-mail address is: ________________________________
For
Snail Mail Recipients, this form may also be mailed to:
AASBCR
P.O.
Box 7477
Buffalo
Grove, IL 60089-7477
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