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2021-12-27
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AT&T Slashed Promised Life Insurance for Former Workers—and Time Runs Out at Year-End<blockquote>AT&T大幅削减了为前员工承诺的人寿保险——年底时间已经不多了</blockquote>
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AT&T will pay heirs of Randall Stephenson, who left as chief executive in 2020, $3.6 million under a life-insurance plan reviewed by the board last year, securities filings show.</p><p><blockquote>削减不适用于高管，他们在一个单独的公司支付计划下拥有人寿保险，未经他们的许可，公司不能减少人寿保险。证券备案文件显示，根据董事会去年审查的人寿保险计划，AT&T将向2020年卸任首席执行官的兰德尔·斯蒂芬森(Randall Stephenson)的继承人支付360万美元。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T said that the cuts for other retirees will bring their benefits more in line with benefits at other large employers, and that the change will increase payouts at death for more than 1,000 retirees. It said only a handful of Fortune 100 companies still offer most employees life insurance that continues after retirement.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T表示，其他退休人员的削减将使他们的福利与其他大型雇主的福利更加一致，这一变化将增加1000多名退休人员的死亡抚恤金。报告称，只有少数财富100强公司仍为大多数员工提供退休后继续提供的人寿保险。</blockquote></p><p> “We are working hard to responsibly balance the needs of the business and our taking care of our current 200,000 employees and 500,000 retirees and their dependents,” said an AT&T spokesman, Fletcher Cook. “It is admittedly a balancing act—one that many companies have not successfully navigated.”</p><p><blockquote>AT&T发言人弗莱彻·库克(Fletcher Cook)表示：“我们正在努力负责任地平衡业务需求与照顾现有20万名员工和50万名退休人员及其家属。”“诚然，这是一种平衡行为——许多公司尚未成功驾驭这一行为。”</blockquote></p><p> That’s little comfort to Mr. Allison, 75 years old, of Stuart, Fla. “If they had told me this 10 years ago, that they were going to cut this, I could have done some planning,” he said.</p><p><blockquote>这对佛罗里达州斯图尔特75岁的艾利森先生来说并不是什么安慰。“如果他们10年前告诉我这一点，他们将削减这一点，我就可以做一些计划，”他说。</blockquote></p><p> Today’s AT&T Inc. is the product of decades of splits and mergers, a remnant of the telephone monopoly nicknamed “Ma Bell” that shed its regional operations in 1984. Other offshoots of that breakup have treated retirees’ benefits differently.</p><p><blockquote>今天的AT&T Inc.是数十年拆分和合并的产物，是绰号为“Ma Bell”的电话垄断企业的残余，该企业于1984年剥离了其区域业务。此次拆分的其他分支机构对退休人员的福利有不同的对待。</blockquote></p><p> <p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/16a73a1e02fbce04a6f21af3769fa8fd\" tg-width=\"1370\" tg-height=\"729\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"><span>AT&T retiree Monte Baggs said he expected his wife, Phillis, seated, to receive company-paid life insurance of at least $75,000 when he died, but AT&T has cut it to $15,000 if he dies after Dec. 31. ‘They’re trying to recover as much as they can, but they’re doing it on the backs of their retirees,’ he said.PHOTO:TALIA HERMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</span></p><p><blockquote><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><span>AT&T退休人员蒙特·巴格斯(Monte Baggs)表示，他预计妻子菲利斯(Phillis)在他去世时将获得公司支付的至少75,000美元的人寿保险，但如果他在12月31日之后去世，AT&T已将其削减至15,000美元。他说：“他们试图尽可能地恢复，但他们是在退休人员的背上这样做的。”照片：《华尔街日报》的塔利亚·赫尔曼</span></p></blockquote></p><p> Verizon Communications Inc.hasn’t reduced already-retired workers’ life insurance or death benefits, though it has sold off business units to companies that later reduced them.Qwest Communications InternationalInc.,now owned by Lumen TechnologiesInc.,eliminated retiree death benefits entirely, more than a decade ago. Both companies, like AT&T, have capped or reduced retirees’ health benefits as well.</p><p><blockquote>Verizon Communications Inc.并未减少已退休员工的人寿保险或死亡抚恤金，尽管它已将业务部门出售给后来减少这些部门的公司。Qwest Communications InternationalInc.现归Lumen TechnologiesInc.所有，十多年前完全取消了退休人员死亡抚恤金。与AT&T一样，这两家公司也限制或减少了退休人员的健康福利。</blockquote></p><p> In cutting existing retirees’ life-insurance benefits, AT&T joins a few other large companies that have done so in recent years. In 2019,3MCo.roughly halved such benefits, andHowmet AerospaceInc.,a business carved out of Alcoa,eliminated life insurance for some retirees.</p><p><blockquote>在削减现有退休人员的人寿保险福利方面，AT&T加入了近年来其他几家大公司的行列。2019年，3MCo.将此类福利大致减半，而从美国铝业剥离出来的Howmet AerospaceInc.则取消了部分退休人员的人寿保险。</blockquote></p><p> Unlike AT&T, both said their changes applied to executives, too. So didCortevaInc.,a seeds and chemicals company formed from DowDuPont that will end life insurance for about 50,000 retirees on Jan. 1. Vanguard Group recently backed off plans to eliminate retiree life insurance and other benefits after retirees protested.</p><p><blockquote>与AT&T不同的是，两家公司都表示，他们的改变也适用于高管。由陶氏杜邦公司（DowDuPont）组建的种子和化学品公司CortevaInc.也是如此，该公司将于1月1日终止约5万名退休人员的人寿保险。在退休人员抗议后，先锋集团最近放弃了取消退休人员人寿保险和其他福利的计划。</blockquote></p><p> When AT&T employees retired, the company told many of those who were managers that they had company-paid life insurance, which often equaled their final year’s pay, although the sum would decline by half once they hit age 70.</p><p><blockquote>当AT&T员工退休时，该公司告诉许多经理，他们有公司支付的人寿保险，通常相当于他们最后一年的工资，尽管一旦他们年满70岁，金额就会减少一半。</blockquote></p><p> Some also were told that a “death benefit,” also based on final compensation, would be payable to a surviving spouse or dependent child. Nearly a third of management retirees affected by the latest cuts were eligible for both benefits.</p><p><blockquote>一些人还被告知，同样基于最终赔偿的“死亡抚恤金”将支付给未亡配偶或受抚养子女。受最新裁员影响的近三分之一的管理层退休人员有资格享受这两项福利。</blockquote></p><p> Now, the life insurance benefit, no matter at what value it started, will be $15,000 if the management retiree dies after Dec. 31. The death benefit will be capped at $25,000.</p><p><blockquote>现在，如果管理层退休人员在12月31日之后去世，人寿保险福利，无论起始价值如何，都将为15,000美元。死亡抚恤金的上限为25,000美元。</blockquote></p><p> Retired AT&T union members also often were told they had life insurance based on their pay. This benefit, too, was designed to decline by half after they reached 70. Now, if they die after Dec. 31, it will be just $25,000. Many union retirees are due a death benefit as well; it will be capped at $25,000 after Dec. 31.</p><p><blockquote>退休的AT&T工会成员也经常被告知他们有基于工资的人寿保险。这项福利也被设计成在他们年满70岁后减少一半。现在，如果他们在12月31日之后去世，将只有25,000美元。许多工会退休人员也有权领取死亡抚恤金；12月31日之后，上限为25,000美元。</blockquote></p><p></p><p> John Tucciarone, who spent 42 years managing AT&T infrastructure in New York and New Jersey until his 2009 retirement, said he recalls executives defending wages that were slightly below competitors’ pay by citing the retirement benefits. “At the time, it was a from-cradle-to-grave type mentality,” said Mr. Tucciarone, a 74-year-old in Leland, N.C. “That stopped a lot of people looking at other places” for higher pay, he said.</p><p><blockquote>约翰·图恰罗内(John Tucciarone)在纽约和新泽西管理AT&T基础设施42年，直至2009年退休，他表示，他回忆起高管们通过引用退休福利来捍卫略低于竞争对手工资的工资。“当时，这是一种从摇篮到坟墓的心态，”北卡罗来纳州利兰74岁的图恰罗内先生说。他说，“这阻止了很多人去其他地方”寻求更高的工资。</blockquote></p><p> In the mid-1990s, AT&T ceased telling most new employees that their spouse would get a death benefit. After 2007, it stopped providing managers a pledge of life insurance that continued in retirement. Over the years, it also stopped basing the life insurance given to new and current union workers on their pay, instead providing a flat $15,000.</p><p><blockquote>20世纪90年代中期，美国电话电报公司不再告诉大多数新员工他们的配偶将获得死亡抚恤金。2007年后，它停止向经理人提供退休后继续提供人寿保险的承诺。多年来，它还不再根据新加入和现任工会工人的工资为人寿保险，而是统一提供15,000美元。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T informed retirees last winter of its plan to cut their benefits. Retirees protested to the board, and a group met with company benefits officials to urge them to reconsider.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T去年冬天通知退休人员其削减福利的计划。退休人员向董事会提出抗议，一个团体会见了公司福利官员，敦促他们重新考虑。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T said directors have received the complaints, together with executives’ response, and the company has no plans to change course.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T表示，董事们已经收到了投诉以及高管的回应，公司没有计划改变路线。</blockquote></p><p> “The marketplace that we operate in has changed. And it’s really forced us to try and still be competitive and make changes that are challenging,” said Julianne Galloway, AT&T’s vice president for global benefits, who met with the retirees.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T全球福利副总裁朱丽安·加洛韦(Julianne Galloway)在会见退休人员时表示：“我们经营的市场已经发生了变化。这确实迫使我们努力保持竞争力并做出具有挑战性的改变。”</blockquote></p><p> <p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/bf011d62dfcfd7e43af7ebc858256763\" tg-width=\"1252\" tg-height=\"697\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"><span>Mr. Allison said that when he retired, AT&T promised a benefit of at least $63,000 upon his death, an amount the company has cut to $15,000 if he dies after Dec. 31.PHOTO:MELODY TIMOTHEE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</span></p><p><blockquote><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><span>Allison先生说，当他退休时，AT&T承诺在他去世时至少提供63,000美元的福利，如果他在12月31日之后去世，该公司将这一金额削减至15,000美元。照片：MELODY TIMOTHEE为《华尔街日报》撰稿</span></p></blockquote></p><p> Warren Miner, 84, retired in 1996 as one of AT&T’s benefits directors, after several years of helping shape health and life-insurance programs like those he hoped to enjoy in retirement.</p><p><blockquote>84岁的沃伦·迈纳(Warren Miner)于1996年退休，担任AT&T的福利主管之一，此前他多年来帮助制定了他希望退休后享受的健康和人寿保险计划。</blockquote></p><p> Mr. Miner, of Estero, Fla., counted on being eligible for about $364,000 from the combination of life insurance and a separate death benefit.</p><p><blockquote>来自佛罗里达州埃斯特罗的迈纳先生预计有资格从人寿保险和单独的死亡抚恤金中获得约36.4万美元。</blockquote></p><p> Instead, after Dec. 31, his wife can expect at most $40,000 in total from the two programs.</p><p><blockquote>相反，在12月31日之后，他的妻子最多可以从这两个项目中获得4万美元。</blockquote></p><p> “If there isn’t a legal obligation, there certainly is a moral obligation not to treat people this way,” Mr. Miner said.</p><p><blockquote>“如果没有法律义务，那么肯定有道德义务不以这种方式对待他人，”迈纳先生说。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T’s Mr. Cook said the company’s “decision is very much about us fulfilling a moral obligation for more than 700,000 people, not just a select few.”</p><p><blockquote>AT&T的库克先生表示，该公司的“决定很大程度上是为了我们为超过70万人履行道德义务，而不仅仅是少数人。”</blockquote></p><p> Federal law bars companies from cutting pension benefits for employees after they retire, but courts have said other kinds of retiree benefits—including healthcare, life insurance and a death benefit—can be changed if employers reserved a right to do so in official documentation.</p><p><blockquote>联邦法律禁止公司在员工退休后削减养老金福利，但法院表示，如果雇主在官方文件中保留这样做的权利，其他类型的退休人员福利——包括医疗保健、人寿保险和死亡抚恤金——可以改变。</blockquote></p><p> Since the early 1990s, AT&T has included, in plan documents, language reserving a right to change retiree benefits at any time. For certain retirees whose plan documents predate this language, life insurance isn’t changing.</p><p><blockquote>自20世纪90年代初以来，美国电话电报公司在计划文件中加入了保留随时改变退休人员福利权利的语言。对于某些计划文件早于此语言的退休人员来说，人寿保险不会改变。</blockquote></p><p> Many retirees said they knew it was possible for AT&T to change their benefits, but they never expected it to do so after maintaining them for decades.</p><p><blockquote>许多退休人员表示，他们知道AT&T有可能改变他们的福利，但他们从未想到在维持了几十年后会这样做。</blockquote></p><p> Karla Billings joined AT&T in Topeka, Kan., in 1996 after being widowed at 32. She retired in 2017. She said she decided not to buy additional life insurance, figuring that AT&T’s $65,000 for retired union workers at her level was enough. Now, assuming she lives past Dec. 31, the payout will be $40,000 less.</p><p><blockquote>卡拉·比林斯在堪萨斯州托皮卡加入了美国电话电报公司。1996年，32岁丧偶。她于2017年退休。她说，她决定不购买额外的人寿保险，认为AT&T为她这个级别的退休工会工人提供的65,000美元已经足够了。现在，假设她活到12月31日之后，支出将减少40,000美元。</blockquote></p><p> “You’re at their mercy, and you don’t really have any recourse,” Ms. Billings said.</p><p><blockquote>“你受他们的摆布，你实际上没有任何追索权，”比林斯女士说。</blockquote></p><p> In letters announcing the reductions, AT&T said it often reviews its benefits to ensure it remains competitive and relevant to past and present employees.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T在宣布裁员的信中表示，它经常审查其福利，以确保其保持竞争力并与过去和现在的员工相关。</blockquote></p><p> “We continue to provide generous retirement benefits that many in corporate America don’t offer any more,” said Mr. Cook, the spokesman. He said four out of five employees, and nearly all retirees, are covered by the company’s pension plan, and the company provides subsidized healthcare for retirees. The wireless network operator also employs a large union-represented workforce under collective bargaining agreements that many competitors don’t have.</p><p><blockquote>“我们继续提供慷慨的退休福利，这是许多美国公司不再提供的，”发言人库克先生说。他说，五分之四的员工以及几乎所有退休人员都享受公司的养老金计划，公司为退休人员提供医疗补贴。这家无线网络运营商还根据集体谈判协议雇用了大量工会代表的劳动力，这是许多竞争对手所没有的。</blockquote></p><p> Life insurance that continues in retirement was once a hallmark of work at blue-chip companies. It was still available to about a third of U.S. workers at medium-size and large companies in 1997, when the Labor Department stopped tracking it. Benefits consulting firm WillisTowers Watsonsays about 13% of the 732 U.S. and foreign companies of various sizes that it tracks offer retiree life insurance. Few of today’s new corporate giants do.</p><p><blockquote>退休后继续购买人寿保险曾经是蓝筹公司工作的标志。1997年，当劳工部停止跟踪它时，大约三分之一的美国大中型公司工人仍然可以使用它。福利咨询公司WilliStowers Watson表示，在其追踪的732家不同规模的美国和外国公司中，约有13%提供退休人员人寿保险。今天的新企业巨头很少有人这样做。</blockquote></p><p> <p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9c34d749277776814bf9a6be8d4bbdd7\" tg-width=\"719\" tg-height=\"591\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"><span>Mr. Baggs, center, at an awards event when he was an AT&T manager.PHOTO:TALIA HERMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</span></p><p><blockquote><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><span>巴格斯先生（中）在担任AT&T经理时出席颁奖典礼。照片：《华尔街日报》的TALIA HERMAN</span></p></blockquote></p><p></p><p> Companies aren’t required to set aside cash to pay future retiree benefits, as they have to do for pensions. But they must carry an obligation on their balance sheets reflecting the current value of every dollar they expect to pay in either pensions or retiree benefits in the future.</p><p><blockquote>公司不需要像支付养老金那样留出现金来支付未来的退休人员福利。但他们必须在资产负债表上承担一项义务，反映他们预计未来支付养老金或退休福利的每一美元的当前价值。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T’s obligation for retiree healthcare and life insurance plans, which it combines in its disclosures, fell to about $14 billion at the end of 2020 from roughly double that amount five years earlier.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T在其披露中对退休人员医疗保健和人寿保险计划的义务从五年前的大约两倍降至2020年底的约140亿美元。</blockquote></p><p> About a decade ago, AT&T had $12.75 billion dedicated to paying those benefits. This fund was down to $3.8 billion in December 2020, as payouts exceeded investment returns and company contributions, securities filings show.</p><p><blockquote>大约十年前，AT&T有127.5亿美元专门用于支付这些福利。证券备案文件显示，由于支出超过了投资回报和公司贡献，该基金在2020年12月降至38亿美元。</blockquote></p><p> Last year, AT&T booked a $2.7 billion accounting benefit from its retiree life and health plans. “A large portion” of this came from reducing its obligations for retiree life-insurance and death benefits, the company said, declining to be specific.</p><p><blockquote>去年，AT&T从其退休人员人寿和健康计划中获得了27亿美元的会计福利。该公司表示，其中“很大一部分”来自于减少退休人员人寿保险和死亡抚恤金的义务，但拒绝透露具体信息。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T has told retirees they can buy new life-insurance policies at a discount through the company if they wish.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T告诉退休人员，如果他们愿意，可以通过该公司以折扣价购买新的人寿保险。</blockquote></p><p> Scott Witt, an actuary and fee-only insurance adviser, said few 70- to 80-year-olds should seriously consider buying life insurance, even at a discount, because premiums rise rapidly at that age. Once it becomes prohibitively expensive, “they’ll drop the policy and then they’ll be worse off for having bought” it, he said.</p><p><blockquote>精算师兼收费保险顾问斯科特·威特(Scott Witt)表示，很少有70至80岁的人应该认真考虑购买人寿保险，即使是打折，因为这个年龄的保费会迅速上涨。他说，一旦价格变得高得令人望而却步，“他们就会放弃保单，然后他们会因为购买了保单而变得更糟”。</blockquote></p><p> An 80-year-old would need to pay $328 a month, or close to $4,000 a year, to maintain a life-insurance benefit of $50,000, according to a pricing schedule AT&T sent to employees in September.</p><p><blockquote>根据AT&T 9月份发给员工的定价表，一名80岁的老人每月需要支付328美元，即每年近4,000美元，才能维持50,000美元的人寿保险福利。</blockquote></p><p> “If I lived to be 90 years old, which I do expect, and paying an increasing premium, I would be far better off investing the money in equities,” said Monte Baggs, 80, who retired in late 1991 after 31 years with AT&T in California and Colorado.</p><p><blockquote>80岁的蒙特·巴格斯(Monte Baggs)在美国电话电报公司工作了31年后于1991年底退休，他说：“如果我活到90岁（我确实预料到了这一点），并支付了越来越多的保费，我最好把钱投资于股票。”加利福尼亚州和科罗拉多州。</blockquote></p><p> At the time, Mr. Baggs said, he turned down a benefit that would have paid his widow a monthly pension after his death, figuring she would get life insurance of at least $75,000 when he died. Now, if he dies after Dec. 31, she will get $15,000.</p><p><blockquote>巴格斯说，当时他拒绝了一项在他死后每月向他的遗孀支付养老金的福利，认为他死后她将获得至少75,000美元的人寿保险。现在，如果他在12月31日之后去世，她将获得15,000美元。</blockquote></p><p> “It’s obvious what they’re trying to do—they’re trying to recover as much as they can, but they’re doing it on the backs of their retirees,” Mr. Baggs said.</p><p><blockquote>“他们想做什么是显而易见的——他们试图尽可能地恢复，但他们是在退休人员的背上这样做的，”巴格斯先生说。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T remains a profitable company, paying nearly $15 billion in annual shareholder dividends as of last year, although its stock has fallen by about 40% over five years. Investors soured on bets that AT&T made on entertainment companies DirecTV and Time Warner Inc. Under investor pressure, AT&T has been unwinding those bets. It sold a stake in DirecTV and set plans to hive off its WarnerMedia division through a merger with Discovery Inc.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T仍然是一家盈利的公司，截至去年，每年支付近150亿美元的股东股息，尽管其股价在五年内下跌了约40%。投资者对AT&T对娱乐公司DirecTV和时代华纳公司的押注感到不满。在投资者的压力下，AT&T一直在解除这些押注。它出售了DirecTV的股份，并计划通过与Discovery Inc.合并来剥离其华纳媒体部门。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T Chief Executive John Stankey, 59, is eligible for life insurance in retirement equal to his final salary; that is about $2.4 million today. The insurance amount will decline to half his final year’s salary at age 70 or once he has been retired for five years, whichever is later.</p><p><blockquote>59岁的AT&T首席执行官约翰·斯坦基(John Stankey)退休后有资格获得相当于其最终工资的人寿保险；今天大约是240万美元。在70岁或退休五年后，保险金额将降至他最后一年工资的一半，以较晚者为准。</blockquote></p><p> Mr. Stankey and his predecessor, Mr. Stephenson, have bought additional life-insurance coverage through AT&T, with the cost subsidized by the company, its filings show. AT&T has disclosed paying about $1.5 million for such coverage for Mr. Stankey and nearly $889,000 for Mr. Stephenson since 2015. The executives declined to comment through an AT&T spokesman.</p><p><blockquote>文件显示，斯坦基和他的前任斯蒂芬森通过AT&T购买了额外的人寿保险，费用由该公司补贴。美国电话电报公司披露，自2015年以来，为斯坦基支付了约150万美元，为斯蒂芬森支付了近88.9万美元。高管们拒绝通过AT&T发言人发表评论。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T said other companies also have paid for special life insurance for at least some executives.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T表示，其他公司也为至少一些高管支付了特殊人寿保险。</blockquote></p><p> Retiree benefits remain on AT&T’s financial radar. In a consulting agreement with a former AT&T finance chief, John Stephens, the company has offered to pay him an extra $500,000 if AT&T meets any of three financial targets. One is cutting $1 billion more from AT&T’s obligation for retiree pensions and benefits. Through an AT&T spokesman, Mr. Stephens declined to comment.</p><p><blockquote>退休人员福利仍在AT&T的财务雷达上。在与美国电话电报公司前财务主管约翰·斯蒂芬斯（John Stephens）达成的咨询协议中，如果美国电话电报公司达到三个财务目标中的任何一个，该公司将向他额外支付50万美元。其中之一是从AT&T的退休人员养老金和福利义务中再削减10亿美元。斯蒂芬斯通过AT&T发言人拒绝置评。</blockquote></p><p></p>","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>AT&T Slashed Promised Life Insurance for Former Workers—and Time Runs Out at Year-End<blockquote>AT&T大幅削减了为前员工承诺的人寿保险——年底时间已经不多了</blockquote></title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 12.5px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nAT&T Slashed Promised Life Insurance for Former Workers—and Time Runs Out at Year-End<blockquote>AT&T大幅削减了为前员工承诺的人寿保险——年底时间已经不多了</blockquote>\n</h2>\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n<p class=\"head\">\n<strong class=\"h-name small\">WSJ</strong><span class=\"h-time small\">2021-12-27 07:30</span>\n</p>\n</h4>\n</header>\n<article>\n<p>When Dean Allison left his job as a property manager atAT&TT0.36%in 1998, the company offered an incentive to retire: a payment of at least $63,000 upon his death.</p><p><blockquote>1998年，当迪安·艾利森(Dean Allison)辞去atAT&TT0.36%物业经理的工作时，该公司提供了一项退休奖励：在他去世时至少支付63,000美元。</blockquote></p><p> He took the deal, figuring the money would someday help his wife cover funeral expenses, pay outstanding bills and have more to live on.</p><p><blockquote>他接受了这笔交易，认为这笔钱有一天会帮助他的妻子支付丧葬费用，支付未付的账单，并有更多的生活。</blockquote></p><p> Early in 2021, AT&T told Mr. Allison it would pay no more than $15,000 if he dies after Dec. 31.</p><p><blockquote>2021年初，AT&T告诉艾利森，如果他在12月31日之后去世，将支付不超过15,000美元的费用。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T’s decision to cut life insurance and death benefits as of Jan. 1 for many of the 220,000 retirees eligible for the benefits has roiled a generation of workers who say their former employer is reneging on a promise.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T决定从1月1日起削减22万名有资格享受福利的退休人员中的许多人的人寿保险和死亡抚恤金，这激怒了一代工人，他们表示他们的前雇主正在违背承诺。</blockquote></p><p> The cuts don’t apply to top executives, who have life insurance under a separate company-paid program, which the company can’t reduce without their permission. AT&T will pay heirs of Randall Stephenson, who left as chief executive in 2020, $3.6 million under a life-insurance plan reviewed by the board last year, securities filings show.</p><p><blockquote>削减不适用于高管，他们在一个单独的公司支付计划下拥有人寿保险，未经他们的许可，公司不能减少人寿保险。证券备案文件显示，根据董事会去年审查的人寿保险计划，AT&T将向2020年卸任首席执行官的兰德尔·斯蒂芬森(Randall Stephenson)的继承人支付360万美元。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T said that the cuts for other retirees will bring their benefits more in line with benefits at other large employers, and that the change will increase payouts at death for more than 1,000 retirees. It said only a handful of Fortune 100 companies still offer most employees life insurance that continues after retirement.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T表示，其他退休人员的削减将使他们的福利与其他大型雇主的福利更加一致，这一变化将增加1000多名退休人员的死亡抚恤金。报告称，只有少数财富100强公司仍为大多数员工提供退休后继续提供的人寿保险。</blockquote></p><p> “We are working hard to responsibly balance the needs of the business and our taking care of our current 200,000 employees and 500,000 retirees and their dependents,” said an AT&T spokesman, Fletcher Cook. “It is admittedly a balancing act—one that many companies have not successfully navigated.”</p><p><blockquote>AT&T发言人弗莱彻·库克(Fletcher Cook)表示：“我们正在努力负责任地平衡业务需求与照顾现有20万名员工和50万名退休人员及其家属。”“诚然，这是一种平衡行为——许多公司尚未成功驾驭这一行为。”</blockquote></p><p> That’s little comfort to Mr. Allison, 75 years old, of Stuart, Fla. “If they had told me this 10 years ago, that they were going to cut this, I could have done some planning,” he said.</p><p><blockquote>这对佛罗里达州斯图尔特75岁的艾利森先生来说并不是什么安慰。“如果他们10年前告诉我这一点，他们将削减这一点，我就可以做一些计划，”他说。</blockquote></p><p> Today’s AT&T Inc. is the product of decades of splits and mergers, a remnant of the telephone monopoly nicknamed “Ma Bell” that shed its regional operations in 1984. Other offshoots of that breakup have treated retirees’ benefits differently.</p><p><blockquote>今天的AT&T Inc.是数十年拆分和合并的产物，是绰号为“Ma Bell”的电话垄断企业的残余，该企业于1984年剥离了其区域业务。此次拆分的其他分支机构对退休人员的福利有不同的对待。</blockquote></p><p> <p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/16a73a1e02fbce04a6f21af3769fa8fd\" tg-width=\"1370\" tg-height=\"729\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"><span>AT&T retiree Monte Baggs said he expected his wife, Phillis, seated, to receive company-paid life insurance of at least $75,000 when he died, but AT&T has cut it to $15,000 if he dies after Dec. 31. ‘They’re trying to recover as much as they can, but they’re doing it on the backs of their retirees,’ he said.PHOTO:TALIA HERMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</span></p><p><blockquote><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><span>AT&T退休人员蒙特·巴格斯(Monte Baggs)表示，他预计妻子菲利斯(Phillis)在他去世时将获得公司支付的至少75,000美元的人寿保险，但如果他在12月31日之后去世，AT&T已将其削减至15,000美元。他说：“他们试图尽可能地恢复，但他们是在退休人员的背上这样做的。”照片：《华尔街日报》的塔利亚·赫尔曼</span></p></blockquote></p><p> Verizon Communications Inc.hasn’t reduced already-retired workers’ life insurance or death benefits, though it has sold off business units to companies that later reduced them.Qwest Communications InternationalInc.,now owned by Lumen TechnologiesInc.,eliminated retiree death benefits entirely, more than a decade ago. Both companies, like AT&T, have capped or reduced retirees’ health benefits as well.</p><p><blockquote>Verizon Communications Inc.并未减少已退休员工的人寿保险或死亡抚恤金，尽管它已将业务部门出售给后来减少这些部门的公司。Qwest Communications InternationalInc.现归Lumen TechnologiesInc.所有，十多年前完全取消了退休人员死亡抚恤金。与AT&T一样，这两家公司也限制或减少了退休人员的健康福利。</blockquote></p><p> In cutting existing retirees’ life-insurance benefits, AT&T joins a few other large companies that have done so in recent years. In 2019,3MCo.roughly halved such benefits, andHowmet AerospaceInc.,a business carved out of Alcoa,eliminated life insurance for some retirees.</p><p><blockquote>在削减现有退休人员的人寿保险福利方面，AT&T加入了近年来其他几家大公司的行列。2019年，3MCo.将此类福利大致减半，而从美国铝业剥离出来的Howmet AerospaceInc.则取消了部分退休人员的人寿保险。</blockquote></p><p> Unlike AT&T, both said their changes applied to executives, too. So didCortevaInc.,a seeds and chemicals company formed from DowDuPont that will end life insurance for about 50,000 retirees on Jan. 1. Vanguard Group recently backed off plans to eliminate retiree life insurance and other benefits after retirees protested.</p><p><blockquote>与AT&T不同的是，两家公司都表示，他们的改变也适用于高管。由陶氏杜邦公司（DowDuPont）组建的种子和化学品公司CortevaInc.也是如此，该公司将于1月1日终止约5万名退休人员的人寿保险。在退休人员抗议后，先锋集团最近放弃了取消退休人员人寿保险和其他福利的计划。</blockquote></p><p> When AT&T employees retired, the company told many of those who were managers that they had company-paid life insurance, which often equaled their final year’s pay, although the sum would decline by half once they hit age 70.</p><p><blockquote>当AT&T员工退休时，该公司告诉许多经理，他们有公司支付的人寿保险，通常相当于他们最后一年的工资，尽管一旦他们年满70岁，金额就会减少一半。</blockquote></p><p> Some also were told that a “death benefit,” also based on final compensation, would be payable to a surviving spouse or dependent child. Nearly a third of management retirees affected by the latest cuts were eligible for both benefits.</p><p><blockquote>一些人还被告知，同样基于最终赔偿的“死亡抚恤金”将支付给未亡配偶或受抚养子女。受最新裁员影响的近三分之一的管理层退休人员有资格享受这两项福利。</blockquote></p><p> Now, the life insurance benefit, no matter at what value it started, will be $15,000 if the management retiree dies after Dec. 31. The death benefit will be capped at $25,000.</p><p><blockquote>现在，如果管理层退休人员在12月31日之后去世，人寿保险福利，无论起始价值如何，都将为15,000美元。死亡抚恤金的上限为25,000美元。</blockquote></p><p> Retired AT&T union members also often were told they had life insurance based on their pay. This benefit, too, was designed to decline by half after they reached 70. Now, if they die after Dec. 31, it will be just $25,000. Many union retirees are due a death benefit as well; it will be capped at $25,000 after Dec. 31.</p><p><blockquote>退休的AT&T工会成员也经常被告知他们有基于工资的人寿保险。这项福利也被设计成在他们年满70岁后减少一半。现在，如果他们在12月31日之后去世，将只有25,000美元。许多工会退休人员也有权领取死亡抚恤金；12月31日之后，上限为25,000美元。</blockquote></p><p></p><p> John Tucciarone, who spent 42 years managing AT&T infrastructure in New York and New Jersey until his 2009 retirement, said he recalls executives defending wages that were slightly below competitors’ pay by citing the retirement benefits. “At the time, it was a from-cradle-to-grave type mentality,” said Mr. Tucciarone, a 74-year-old in Leland, N.C. “That stopped a lot of people looking at other places” for higher pay, he said.</p><p><blockquote>约翰·图恰罗内(John Tucciarone)在纽约和新泽西管理AT&T基础设施42年，直至2009年退休，他表示，他回忆起高管们通过引用退休福利来捍卫略低于竞争对手工资的工资。“当时，这是一种从摇篮到坟墓的心态，”北卡罗来纳州利兰74岁的图恰罗内先生说。他说，“这阻止了很多人去其他地方”寻求更高的工资。</blockquote></p><p> In the mid-1990s, AT&T ceased telling most new employees that their spouse would get a death benefit. After 2007, it stopped providing managers a pledge of life insurance that continued in retirement. Over the years, it also stopped basing the life insurance given to new and current union workers on their pay, instead providing a flat $15,000.</p><p><blockquote>20世纪90年代中期，美国电话电报公司不再告诉大多数新员工他们的配偶将获得死亡抚恤金。2007年后，它停止向经理人提供退休后继续提供人寿保险的承诺。多年来，它还不再根据新加入和现任工会工人的工资为人寿保险，而是统一提供15,000美元。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T informed retirees last winter of its plan to cut their benefits. Retirees protested to the board, and a group met with company benefits officials to urge them to reconsider.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T去年冬天通知退休人员其削减福利的计划。退休人员向董事会提出抗议，一个团体会见了公司福利官员，敦促他们重新考虑。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T said directors have received the complaints, together with executives’ response, and the company has no plans to change course.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T表示，董事们已经收到了投诉以及高管的回应，公司没有计划改变路线。</blockquote></p><p> “The marketplace that we operate in has changed. And it’s really forced us to try and still be competitive and make changes that are challenging,” said Julianne Galloway, AT&T’s vice president for global benefits, who met with the retirees.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T全球福利副总裁朱丽安·加洛韦(Julianne Galloway)在会见退休人员时表示：“我们经营的市场已经发生了变化。这确实迫使我们努力保持竞争力并做出具有挑战性的改变。”</blockquote></p><p> <p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/bf011d62dfcfd7e43af7ebc858256763\" tg-width=\"1252\" tg-height=\"697\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"><span>Mr. Allison said that when he retired, AT&T promised a benefit of at least $63,000 upon his death, an amount the company has cut to $15,000 if he dies after Dec. 31.PHOTO:MELODY TIMOTHEE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</span></p><p><blockquote><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><span>Allison先生说，当他退休时，AT&T承诺在他去世时至少提供63,000美元的福利，如果他在12月31日之后去世，该公司将这一金额削减至15,000美元。照片：MELODY TIMOTHEE为《华尔街日报》撰稿</span></p></blockquote></p><p> Warren Miner, 84, retired in 1996 as one of AT&T’s benefits directors, after several years of helping shape health and life-insurance programs like those he hoped to enjoy in retirement.</p><p><blockquote>84岁的沃伦·迈纳(Warren Miner)于1996年退休，担任AT&T的福利主管之一，此前他多年来帮助制定了他希望退休后享受的健康和人寿保险计划。</blockquote></p><p> Mr. Miner, of Estero, Fla., counted on being eligible for about $364,000 from the combination of life insurance and a separate death benefit.</p><p><blockquote>来自佛罗里达州埃斯特罗的迈纳先生预计有资格从人寿保险和单独的死亡抚恤金中获得约36.4万美元。</blockquote></p><p> Instead, after Dec. 31, his wife can expect at most $40,000 in total from the two programs.</p><p><blockquote>相反，在12月31日之后，他的妻子最多可以从这两个项目中获得4万美元。</blockquote></p><p> “If there isn’t a legal obligation, there certainly is a moral obligation not to treat people this way,” Mr. Miner said.</p><p><blockquote>“如果没有法律义务，那么肯定有道德义务不以这种方式对待他人，”迈纳先生说。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T’s Mr. Cook said the company’s “decision is very much about us fulfilling a moral obligation for more than 700,000 people, not just a select few.”</p><p><blockquote>AT&T的库克先生表示，该公司的“决定很大程度上是为了我们为超过70万人履行道德义务，而不仅仅是少数人。”</blockquote></p><p> Federal law bars companies from cutting pension benefits for employees after they retire, but courts have said other kinds of retiree benefits—including healthcare, life insurance and a death benefit—can be changed if employers reserved a right to do so in official documentation.</p><p><blockquote>联邦法律禁止公司在员工退休后削减养老金福利，但法院表示，如果雇主在官方文件中保留这样做的权利，其他类型的退休人员福利——包括医疗保健、人寿保险和死亡抚恤金——可以改变。</blockquote></p><p> Since the early 1990s, AT&T has included, in plan documents, language reserving a right to change retiree benefits at any time. For certain retirees whose plan documents predate this language, life insurance isn’t changing.</p><p><blockquote>自20世纪90年代初以来，美国电话电报公司在计划文件中加入了保留随时改变退休人员福利权利的语言。对于某些计划文件早于此语言的退休人员来说，人寿保险不会改变。</blockquote></p><p> Many retirees said they knew it was possible for AT&T to change their benefits, but they never expected it to do so after maintaining them for decades.</p><p><blockquote>许多退休人员表示，他们知道AT&T有可能改变他们的福利，但他们从未想到在维持了几十年后会这样做。</blockquote></p><p> Karla Billings joined AT&T in Topeka, Kan., in 1996 after being widowed at 32. She retired in 2017. She said she decided not to buy additional life insurance, figuring that AT&T’s $65,000 for retired union workers at her level was enough. Now, assuming she lives past Dec. 31, the payout will be $40,000 less.</p><p><blockquote>卡拉·比林斯在堪萨斯州托皮卡加入了美国电话电报公司。1996年，32岁丧偶。她于2017年退休。她说，她决定不购买额外的人寿保险，认为AT&T为她这个级别的退休工会工人提供的65,000美元已经足够了。现在，假设她活到12月31日之后，支出将减少40,000美元。</blockquote></p><p> “You’re at their mercy, and you don’t really have any recourse,” Ms. Billings said.</p><p><blockquote>“你受他们的摆布，你实际上没有任何追索权，”比林斯女士说。</blockquote></p><p> In letters announcing the reductions, AT&T said it often reviews its benefits to ensure it remains competitive and relevant to past and present employees.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T在宣布裁员的信中表示，它经常审查其福利，以确保其保持竞争力并与过去和现在的员工相关。</blockquote></p><p> “We continue to provide generous retirement benefits that many in corporate America don’t offer any more,” said Mr. Cook, the spokesman. He said four out of five employees, and nearly all retirees, are covered by the company’s pension plan, and the company provides subsidized healthcare for retirees. The wireless network operator also employs a large union-represented workforce under collective bargaining agreements that many competitors don’t have.</p><p><blockquote>“我们继续提供慷慨的退休福利，这是许多美国公司不再提供的，”发言人库克先生说。他说，五分之四的员工以及几乎所有退休人员都享受公司的养老金计划，公司为退休人员提供医疗补贴。这家无线网络运营商还根据集体谈判协议雇用了大量工会代表的劳动力，这是许多竞争对手所没有的。</blockquote></p><p> Life insurance that continues in retirement was once a hallmark of work at blue-chip companies. It was still available to about a third of U.S. workers at medium-size and large companies in 1997, when the Labor Department stopped tracking it. Benefits consulting firm WillisTowers Watsonsays about 13% of the 732 U.S. and foreign companies of various sizes that it tracks offer retiree life insurance. Few of today’s new corporate giants do.</p><p><blockquote>退休后继续购买人寿保险曾经是蓝筹公司工作的标志。1997年，当劳工部停止跟踪它时，大约三分之一的美国大中型公司工人仍然可以使用它。福利咨询公司WilliStowers Watson表示，在其追踪的732家不同规模的美国和外国公司中，约有13%提供退休人员人寿保险。今天的新企业巨头很少有人这样做。</blockquote></p><p> <p class=\"t-img-caption\"><img src=\"https://static.tigerbbs.com/9c34d749277776814bf9a6be8d4bbdd7\" tg-width=\"719\" tg-height=\"591\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\"><span>Mr. Baggs, center, at an awards event when he was an AT&T manager.PHOTO:TALIA HERMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL</span></p><p><blockquote><p class=\"t-img-caption\"><span>巴格斯先生（中）在担任AT&T经理时出席颁奖典礼。照片：《华尔街日报》的TALIA HERMAN</span></p></blockquote></p><p></p><p> Companies aren’t required to set aside cash to pay future retiree benefits, as they have to do for pensions. But they must carry an obligation on their balance sheets reflecting the current value of every dollar they expect to pay in either pensions or retiree benefits in the future.</p><p><blockquote>公司不需要像支付养老金那样留出现金来支付未来的退休人员福利。但他们必须在资产负债表上承担一项义务，反映他们预计未来支付养老金或退休福利的每一美元的当前价值。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T’s obligation for retiree healthcare and life insurance plans, which it combines in its disclosures, fell to about $14 billion at the end of 2020 from roughly double that amount five years earlier.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T在其披露中对退休人员医疗保健和人寿保险计划的义务从五年前的大约两倍降至2020年底的约140亿美元。</blockquote></p><p> About a decade ago, AT&T had $12.75 billion dedicated to paying those benefits. This fund was down to $3.8 billion in December 2020, as payouts exceeded investment returns and company contributions, securities filings show.</p><p><blockquote>大约十年前，AT&T有127.5亿美元专门用于支付这些福利。证券备案文件显示，由于支出超过了投资回报和公司贡献，该基金在2020年12月降至38亿美元。</blockquote></p><p> Last year, AT&T booked a $2.7 billion accounting benefit from its retiree life and health plans. “A large portion” of this came from reducing its obligations for retiree life-insurance and death benefits, the company said, declining to be specific.</p><p><blockquote>去年，AT&T从其退休人员人寿和健康计划中获得了27亿美元的会计福利。该公司表示，其中“很大一部分”来自于减少退休人员人寿保险和死亡抚恤金的义务，但拒绝透露具体信息。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T has told retirees they can buy new life-insurance policies at a discount through the company if they wish.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T告诉退休人员，如果他们愿意，可以通过该公司以折扣价购买新的人寿保险。</blockquote></p><p> Scott Witt, an actuary and fee-only insurance adviser, said few 70- to 80-year-olds should seriously consider buying life insurance, even at a discount, because premiums rise rapidly at that age. Once it becomes prohibitively expensive, “they’ll drop the policy and then they’ll be worse off for having bought” it, he said.</p><p><blockquote>精算师兼收费保险顾问斯科特·威特(Scott Witt)表示，很少有70至80岁的人应该认真考虑购买人寿保险，即使是打折，因为这个年龄的保费会迅速上涨。他说，一旦价格变得高得令人望而却步，“他们就会放弃保单，然后他们会因为购买了保单而变得更糟”。</blockquote></p><p> An 80-year-old would need to pay $328 a month, or close to $4,000 a year, to maintain a life-insurance benefit of $50,000, according to a pricing schedule AT&T sent to employees in September.</p><p><blockquote>根据AT&T 9月份发给员工的定价表，一名80岁的老人每月需要支付328美元，即每年近4,000美元，才能维持50,000美元的人寿保险福利。</blockquote></p><p> “If I lived to be 90 years old, which I do expect, and paying an increasing premium, I would be far better off investing the money in equities,” said Monte Baggs, 80, who retired in late 1991 after 31 years with AT&T in California and Colorado.</p><p><blockquote>80岁的蒙特·巴格斯(Monte Baggs)在美国电话电报公司工作了31年后于1991年底退休，他说：“如果我活到90岁（我确实预料到了这一点），并支付了越来越多的保费，我最好把钱投资于股票。”加利福尼亚州和科罗拉多州。</blockquote></p><p> At the time, Mr. Baggs said, he turned down a benefit that would have paid his widow a monthly pension after his death, figuring she would get life insurance of at least $75,000 when he died. Now, if he dies after Dec. 31, she will get $15,000.</p><p><blockquote>巴格斯说，当时他拒绝了一项在他死后每月向他的遗孀支付养老金的福利，认为他死后她将获得至少75,000美元的人寿保险。现在，如果他在12月31日之后去世，她将获得15,000美元。</blockquote></p><p> “It’s obvious what they’re trying to do—they’re trying to recover as much as they can, but they’re doing it on the backs of their retirees,” Mr. Baggs said.</p><p><blockquote>“他们想做什么是显而易见的——他们试图尽可能地恢复，但他们是在退休人员的背上这样做的，”巴格斯先生说。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T remains a profitable company, paying nearly $15 billion in annual shareholder dividends as of last year, although its stock has fallen by about 40% over five years. Investors soured on bets that AT&T made on entertainment companies DirecTV and Time Warner Inc. Under investor pressure, AT&T has been unwinding those bets. It sold a stake in DirecTV and set plans to hive off its WarnerMedia division through a merger with Discovery Inc.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T仍然是一家盈利的公司，截至去年，每年支付近150亿美元的股东股息，尽管其股价在五年内下跌了约40%。投资者对AT&T对娱乐公司DirecTV和时代华纳公司的押注感到不满。在投资者的压力下，AT&T一直在解除这些押注。它出售了DirecTV的股份，并计划通过与Discovery Inc.合并来剥离其华纳媒体部门。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T Chief Executive John Stankey, 59, is eligible for life insurance in retirement equal to his final salary; that is about $2.4 million today. The insurance amount will decline to half his final year’s salary at age 70 or once he has been retired for five years, whichever is later.</p><p><blockquote>59岁的AT&T首席执行官约翰·斯坦基(John Stankey)退休后有资格获得相当于其最终工资的人寿保险；今天大约是240万美元。在70岁或退休五年后，保险金额将降至他最后一年工资的一半，以较晚者为准。</blockquote></p><p> Mr. Stankey and his predecessor, Mr. Stephenson, have bought additional life-insurance coverage through AT&T, with the cost subsidized by the company, its filings show. AT&T has disclosed paying about $1.5 million for such coverage for Mr. Stankey and nearly $889,000 for Mr. Stephenson since 2015. The executives declined to comment through an AT&T spokesman.</p><p><blockquote>文件显示，斯坦基和他的前任斯蒂芬森通过AT&T购买了额外的人寿保险，费用由该公司补贴。美国电话电报公司披露，自2015年以来，为斯坦基支付了约150万美元，为斯蒂芬森支付了近88.9万美元。高管们拒绝通过AT&T发言人发表评论。</blockquote></p><p> AT&T said other companies also have paid for special life insurance for at least some executives.</p><p><blockquote>AT&T表示，其他公司也为至少一些高管支付了特殊人寿保险。</blockquote></p><p> Retiree benefits remain on AT&T’s financial radar. In a consulting agreement with a former AT&T finance chief, John Stephens, the company has offered to pay him an extra $500,000 if AT&T meets any of three financial targets. One is cutting $1 billion more from AT&T’s obligation for retiree pensions and benefits. Through an AT&T spokesman, Mr. Stephens declined to comment.</p><p><blockquote>退休人员福利仍在AT&T的财务雷达上。在与美国电话电报公司前财务主管约翰·斯蒂芬斯（John Stephens）达成的咨询协议中，如果美国电话电报公司达到三个财务目标中的任何一个，该公司将向他额外支付50万美元。其中之一是从AT&T的退休人员养老金和福利义务中再削减10亿美元。斯蒂芬斯通过AT&T发言人拒绝置评。</blockquote></p><p></p>\n<div class=\"bt-text\">\n\n\n<p> 来源：<a href=\"https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-slashed-promised-life-insurance-for-former-workersand-time-runs-out-at-year-end-11640544022?siteid=yhoof2\">WSJ</a></p>\n<p>为提升您的阅读体验，我们对本页面进行了排版优化</p>\n\n\n</div>\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"T":"At&T"},"source_url":"https://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-slashed-promised-life-insurance-for-former-workersand-time-runs-out-at-year-end-11640544022?siteid=yhoof2","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1178126612","content_text":"When Dean Allison left his job as a property manager atAT&TT0.36%in 1998, the company offered an incentive to retire: a payment of at least $63,000 upon his death.\nHe took the deal, figuring the money would someday help his wife cover funeral expenses, pay outstanding bills and have more to live on.\nEarly in 2021, AT&T told Mr. Allison it would pay no more than $15,000 if he dies after Dec. 31.\nAT&T’s decision to cut life insurance and death benefits as of Jan. 1 for many of the 220,000 retirees eligible for the benefits has roiled a generation of workers who say their former employer is reneging on a promise.\nThe cuts don’t apply to top executives, who have life insurance under a separate company-paid program, which the company can’t reduce without their permission. AT&T will pay heirs of Randall Stephenson, who left as chief executive in 2020, $3.6 million under a life-insurance plan reviewed by the board last year, securities filings show.\nAT&T said that the cuts for other retirees will bring their benefits more in line with benefits at other large employers, and that the change will increase payouts at death for more than 1,000 retirees. It said only a handful of Fortune 100 companies still offer most employees life insurance that continues after retirement.\n“We are working hard to responsibly balance the needs of the business and our taking care of our current 200,000 employees and 500,000 retirees and their dependents,” said an AT&T spokesman, Fletcher Cook. “It is admittedly a balancing act—one that many companies have not successfully navigated.”\nThat’s little comfort to Mr. Allison, 75 years old, of Stuart, Fla. “If they had told me this 10 years ago, that they were going to cut this, I could have done some planning,” he said.\nToday’s AT&T Inc. is the product of decades of splits and mergers, a remnant of the telephone monopoly nicknamed “Ma Bell” that shed its regional operations in 1984. Other offshoots of that breakup have treated retirees’ benefits differently.\nAT&T retiree Monte Baggs said he expected his wife, Phillis, seated, to receive company-paid life insurance of at least $75,000 when he died, but AT&T has cut it to $15,000 if he dies after Dec. 31. ‘They’re trying to recover as much as they can, but they’re doing it on the backs of their retirees,’ he said.PHOTO:TALIA HERMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL\nVerizon Communications Inc.hasn’t reduced already-retired workers’ life insurance or death benefits, though it has sold off business units to companies that later reduced them.Qwest Communications InternationalInc.,now owned by Lumen TechnologiesInc.,eliminated retiree death benefits entirely, more than a decade ago. Both companies, like AT&T, have capped or reduced retirees’ health benefits as well.\nIn cutting existing retirees’ life-insurance benefits, AT&T joins a few other large companies that have done so in recent years. In 2019,3MCo.roughly halved such benefits, andHowmet AerospaceInc.,a business carved out of Alcoa,eliminated life insurance for some retirees.\nUnlike AT&T, both said their changes applied to executives, too. So didCortevaInc.,a seeds and chemicals company formed from DowDuPont that will end life insurance for about 50,000 retirees on Jan. 1. Vanguard Group recently backed off plans to eliminate retiree life insurance and other benefits after retirees protested.\nWhen AT&T employees retired, the company told many of those who were managers that they had company-paid life insurance, which often equaled their final year’s pay, although the sum would decline by half once they hit age 70.\nSome also were told that a “death benefit,” also based on final compensation, would be payable to a surviving spouse or dependent child. Nearly a third of management retirees affected by the latest cuts were eligible for both benefits.\nNow, the life insurance benefit, no matter at what value it started, will be $15,000 if the management retiree dies after Dec. 31. The death benefit will be capped at $25,000.\nRetired AT&T union members also often were told they had life insurance based on their pay. This benefit, too, was designed to decline by half after they reached 70. Now, if they die after Dec. 31, it will be just $25,000. Many union retirees are due a death benefit as well; it will be capped at $25,000 after Dec. 31.\nJohn Tucciarone, who spent 42 years managing AT&T infrastructure in New York and New Jersey until his 2009 retirement, said he recalls executives defending wages that were slightly below competitors’ pay by citing the retirement benefits. “At the time, it was a from-cradle-to-grave type mentality,” said Mr. Tucciarone, a 74-year-old in Leland, N.C. “That stopped a lot of people looking at other places” for higher pay, he said.\nIn the mid-1990s, AT&T ceased telling most new employees that their spouse would get a death benefit. After 2007, it stopped providing managers a pledge of life insurance that continued in retirement. Over the years, it also stopped basing the life insurance given to new and current union workers on their pay, instead providing a flat $15,000.\nAT&T informed retirees last winter of its plan to cut their benefits. Retirees protested to the board, and a group met with company benefits officials to urge them to reconsider.\nAT&T said directors have received the complaints, together with executives’ response, and the company has no plans to change course.\n“The marketplace that we operate in has changed. And it’s really forced us to try and still be competitive and make changes that are challenging,” said Julianne Galloway, AT&T’s vice president for global benefits, who met with the retirees.\nMr. Allison said that when he retired, AT&T promised a benefit of at least $63,000 upon his death, an amount the company has cut to $15,000 if he dies after Dec. 31.PHOTO:MELODY TIMOTHEE FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL\nWarren Miner, 84, retired in 1996 as one of AT&T’s benefits directors, after several years of helping shape health and life-insurance programs like those he hoped to enjoy in retirement.\nMr. Miner, of Estero, Fla., counted on being eligible for about $364,000 from the combination of life insurance and a separate death benefit.\nInstead, after Dec. 31, his wife can expect at most $40,000 in total from the two programs.\n“If there isn’t a legal obligation, there certainly is a moral obligation not to treat people this way,” Mr. Miner said.\nAT&T’s Mr. Cook said the company’s “decision is very much about us fulfilling a moral obligation for more than 700,000 people, not just a select few.”\nFederal law bars companies from cutting pension benefits for employees after they retire, but courts have said other kinds of retiree benefits—including healthcare, life insurance and a death benefit—can be changed if employers reserved a right to do so in official documentation.\nSince the early 1990s, AT&T has included, in plan documents, language reserving a right to change retiree benefits at any time. For certain retirees whose plan documents predate this language, life insurance isn’t changing.\nMany retirees said they knew it was possible for AT&T to change their benefits, but they never expected it to do so after maintaining them for decades.\nKarla Billings joined AT&T in Topeka, Kan., in 1996 after being widowed at 32. She retired in 2017. She said she decided not to buy additional life insurance, figuring that AT&T’s $65,000 for retired union workers at her level was enough. Now, assuming she lives past Dec. 31, the payout will be $40,000 less.\n“You’re at their mercy, and you don’t really have any recourse,” Ms. Billings said.\nIn letters announcing the reductions, AT&T said it often reviews its benefits to ensure it remains competitive and relevant to past and present employees.\n“We continue to provide generous retirement benefits that many in corporate America don’t offer any more,” said Mr. Cook, the spokesman. He said four out of five employees, and nearly all retirees, are covered by the company’s pension plan, and the company provides subsidized healthcare for retirees. The wireless network operator also employs a large union-represented workforce under collective bargaining agreements that many competitors don’t have.\nLife insurance that continues in retirement was once a hallmark of work at blue-chip companies. It was still available to about a third of U.S. workers at medium-size and large companies in 1997, when the Labor Department stopped tracking it. Benefits consulting firm WillisTowers Watsonsays about 13% of the 732 U.S. and foreign companies of various sizes that it tracks offer retiree life insurance. Few of today’s new corporate giants do.\nMr. Baggs, center, at an awards event when he was an AT&T manager.PHOTO:TALIA HERMAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL\nCompanies aren’t required to set aside cash to pay future retiree benefits, as they have to do for pensions. But they must carry an obligation on their balance sheets reflecting the current value of every dollar they expect to pay in either pensions or retiree benefits in the future.\nAT&T’s obligation for retiree healthcare and life insurance plans, which it combines in its disclosures, fell to about $14 billion at the end of 2020 from roughly double that amount five years earlier.\nAbout a decade ago, AT&T had $12.75 billion dedicated to paying those benefits. This fund was down to $3.8 billion in December 2020, as payouts exceeded investment returns and company contributions, securities filings show.\nLast year, AT&T booked a $2.7 billion accounting benefit from its retiree life and health plans. “A large portion” of this came from reducing its obligations for retiree life-insurance and death benefits, the company said, declining to be specific.\nAT&T has told retirees they can buy new life-insurance policies at a discount through the company if they wish.\nScott Witt, an actuary and fee-only insurance adviser, said few 70- to 80-year-olds should seriously consider buying life insurance, even at a discount, because premiums rise rapidly at that age. Once it becomes prohibitively expensive, “they’ll drop the policy and then they’ll be worse off for having bought” it, he said.\nAn 80-year-old would need to pay $328 a month, or close to $4,000 a year, to maintain a life-insurance benefit of $50,000, according to a pricing schedule AT&T sent to employees in September.\n“If I lived to be 90 years old, which I do expect, and paying an increasing premium, I would be far better off investing the money in equities,” said Monte Baggs, 80, who retired in late 1991 after 31 years with AT&T in California and Colorado.\nAt the time, Mr. Baggs said, he turned down a benefit that would have paid his widow a monthly pension after his death, figuring she would get life insurance of at least $75,000 when he died. Now, if he dies after Dec. 31, she will get $15,000.\n“It’s obvious what they’re trying to do—they’re trying to recover as much as they can, but they’re doing it on the backs of their retirees,” Mr. Baggs said.\nAT&T remains a profitable company, paying nearly $15 billion in annual shareholder dividends as of last year, although its stock has fallen by about 40% over five years. Investors soured on bets that AT&T made on entertainment companies DirecTV and Time Warner Inc. Under investor pressure, AT&T has been unwinding those bets. It sold a stake in DirecTV and set plans to hive off its WarnerMedia division through a merger with Discovery Inc.\nAT&T Chief Executive John Stankey, 59, is eligible for life insurance in retirement equal to his final salary; that is about $2.4 million today. The insurance amount will decline to half his final year’s salary at age 70 or once he has been retired for five years, whichever is later.\nMr. Stankey and his predecessor, Mr. Stephenson, have bought additional life-insurance coverage through AT&T, with the cost subsidized by the company, its filings show. AT&T has disclosed paying about $1.5 million for such coverage for Mr. Stankey and nearly $889,000 for Mr. Stephenson since 2015. The executives declined to comment through an AT&T spokesman.\nAT&T said other companies also have paid for special life insurance for at least some executives.\nRetiree benefits remain on AT&T’s financial radar. In a consulting agreement with a former AT&T finance chief, John Stephens, the company has offered to pay him an extra $500,000 if AT&T meets any of three financial targets. One is cutting $1 billion more from AT&T’s obligation for retiree pensions and benefits. Through an AT&T spokesman, Mr. Stephens declined to comment.","news_type":1,"symbols_score_info":{"T":0.9}},"isVote":1,"tweetType":1,"viewCount":2708,"commentLimit":10,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"symbols":[],"verified":2,"subType":0,"readableState":1,"langContent":"CN","currentLanguage":"CN","warmUpFlag":false,"orderFlag":false,"shareable":true,"causeOfNotShareable":"","featuresForAnalytics":[],"commentAndTweetFlag":false,"andRepostAutoSelectedFlag":false,"upFlag":false,"length":12,"xxTargetLangEnum":"ZH_CN"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"isTiger":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"url":"/m/post/698722891"}
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