Goodyear~USWA & The VEBA Settlement !(#2)

-----Original Message----

-From: Don Jones [mailto:donjones@charter.net] Sent: Sun 1/20/2008 1:41 PM

To: Goodyear Veba Settlement Subject: VEBA > Who and How Much...1/20/08

To Whom it May concern : 1/20/08

My question`s are multiple ;

(1.) Who are/is being considered for the Board/Committee for the VEBA ? How many will be on the Board/Committee ?

(2.) How much will they be compensated ? Who sets their pay ? Who are they answerable too ?

(3.) By what date will they be appointed ?

Don Jones, TN 38237-5240
e-mail > donjones@charter.net <

Mr. Jones , 1/25/08

This is in response/answer to your questions above regarding the VEBA Committee created by the Goodyear settlement agreement : How many will be on the Board/Committee ? The VEBA will be controlled by a nine member VEBA Committee that will be independent of Goodyear. The VEBA Committee will initially be made up of two members selected by the class representatives who represent Goodyear retirees, three members selected by the United Steelworkers Union (USW), and four Public Members designated in the settlement agreement and who in the future will select their own successors. How much will they be compensated ? The Public Members and Class Committee members will receive an annual retainer of $16,000 and a meeting fee of $2000 for each meeting of the Committee that the member attends. However, each member cannot receive more than $28,000 per calendar year in meeting and retainer fees combined. Under the rules agreed to for the VEBA Committee, two of the three USW Committee Members (Duzak and Ivey) do not qualify for compensation because of their status as an employee of the USW or a USW local (respectively). However, all members of the Committee are entitled to reimbursement for reasonable expenses incurred in the performance of their duties.Who sets their pay ? The Committee members’ pay is set by the settlement agreement. These amounts will be adjusted in the future for inflation.Who are they answerable to ? The VEBA Committee is answerable to all participants in the VEBA, as it has a fiduciary duty act to prudently and to administer the VEBA in a manner that takes into consideration the interests of VEBA participants. By what date will they be appointed ? The settlement agreement creating the VEBA first has to be approved by the court. There is a hearing regarding the settlement agreement on April 11, 2008. The court may approve the settlement that day or in the following weeks, may ask that changes be made to the settlement agreement, or may reject the settlement agreement. Who are/is being considered for the Board/Committee for the VEBA ? The proposed members of the VEBA Committee are: Tom Duzak (Chairman) (appointed by the USW): Mr. Duzak is the Director of the USW Pension and Benefits Department and Executive Director of the Steelworkers Health and Welfare Fund which provides healthcare coverage for over 40,000 USW members and retirees nationwide. Mr. Duzak currently serves as a trustee or committee member for nine other USW negotiated VEBA trusts. Mr. Duzak has been a member of the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council since 1997 and has been Council Chairman for three years. He previously served as a member of both the U.S. Department of Labor ERISA Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. John Sellers (appointed by the USW): Mr. Sellers is a retired Vice President of the USW Rubber/Plastics Industry Conference (R/PIC). Mr. Sellers held this post from March, 1996 until his retirement from the USW in 2005. Mr. Sellers joined URW Local 639 in 1966 and was appointed to the URW staff in 1978. He joined the International staff in 1991 and served as organizing director, education director and political education director. He also coordinated successful strategic campaigns to win contract settlements from major tire manufacturers. Jerry Ivey (appointed by the USW): Mr. Ivey is a Pension and Insurance and Policy Committee Member from Local 878 in Union City, Tennessee. Mr. Ivey began working for Goodyear in 1976. He has served as a P&I representative for the past 13 years and has been elected to the Policy Committee for the past 9 years. During his tenure as a local union representative, Mr. Ivey has served as a Union Steward in the plant and has been elected to the Executive Board and the By-Laws Committee for 9 years. Mr. Ivey has been selected as a delegate to every International Convention since 1976 and currently serves as a member of the International Medical Benefits Compliance Committee (MBCC), which was established in 2003. Mr. Ivey actively participated in the negotiations for the 2000, 2003 and 2006 collective bargaining agreements between the USW and Goodyear. Simone Rockstroh (Secretary)(appointed by the Class Representatives): Mrs. Rockstroh is President and Treasurer of Carday Associates, Inc., which has provided administrative and consulting services to a variety of employee benefit funds since 1952. She is a member of the Administrators Advisory Committee of the National Coordinating Committee of Multi-employer Plans and the Executive Director of the Health Care Cost Containment Corporation of the Mid-Atlantic Region. Mrs. Rockstroh is Secretary of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plan's Board of Directors. Jeffrey Lewis (appointed by the Class Representatives): Mr. Lewis is a shareholder and founding partner of the law firm of Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson in Oakland, California and has specialized in employee benefits law since 1975. He is a Senior Editor of Employee Benefits Law and has served as Co-Chair of the Employee Benefits Committee of the Labor and Employment Section of The American Bar Association and as Co-Chair of the National Employment Lawyers Association ERISA Committee. He has testified before Congressional committees regarding pension issues. Mr. Lewis was elected as a charter fellow of the College of Employee Benefits Counsel, and he is a fellow of the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. Scott Spencer (Public Member): Mr. Spencer is an insurance executive who currently is the Senior Vice President of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA). He serves as Chairman of the Board of Employee Benefits Research Institute and as a member of the boards of directors of other employee benefits interest groups. Over 25 years ago, Scott was a member of the USW legal staff for an eight year period at the beginning of his career (1975-1983).Teresa Ghilarducci (Public Member): Dr. Ghilarducci served for 25 years as a professor of economics at Notre Dame University, where she was also director of the Higgins Labor Research Center. Dr. Ghilarducci, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, will soon join the faculty of the New School for Social Research in New York City where she will be the Bernard I. and Irene Schwartz Chair in Economic Policy Analysis. Dr. Ghilarducci is the author of numerous books and articles on pension and retirement issues and testifies frequently before the U.S. Congress. She serves as a public trustee for the Health Care VEBA for UAW Retirees of General Motors and previously served on the Board of the State of Indiana Public Employees Retirement Fund and the Advisory Board of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Nell Hennessy (Public Member): Ms. Hennessy is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Fiduciary Counselors, Inc., which provides investment advice to employee benefit plans and also provides expert counsel on fiduciary matters. From 1993 to 1998, she served as Deputy Executive Director and Chief Negotiator of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Ms. Hennessy has chaired the ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits and the Employee Benefits and Executive Compensation Committee in the ABA Section of Business Law. Since 1985 Ms. Hennessy has been an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where she helped develop the graduate certificate program in employee benefits. She was a founding Board member of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel. She is also a founding member and past President of the Worldwide Employee Benefits Network (WEB). Phyllis Borzi (Public Member): Ms. Borzi is of counsel with the Washington, D.C. law firm of O'Donoghue & O'Donoghue LLP, where she specializes in employee benefit plan matters. She is also a research professor in the Department of Health Policy, School of Public Health and Health Services, and The George Washington University Medical Center, where she is involved in legal research and policy analysis involving employer-sponsored health benefits, managed care, access to health care and electronic health information technology. She served as pension and employee benefit counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations of the Committee on Education and Labor for sixteen years. In 1993, in connection with the Presidential Task Force on Health Care Reform, chaired by former First Lady and now Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ms. Borzi served on working groups dealing with insurance reform, workers' compensation and employer coverage. Ms. Borzi is a charter member of the American College of Employee Benefit Counsel and currently serves as its immediate past president and a member of its board of governors. I hope this answers your questions. If not, or if you have any further questions, you can reply to this e-mail or call our toll free number: 1 (877) 633-2455. If you call, please mention that you had sent a previous e-mail. In addition, there are answers to many of the frequently asked questions about the settlement on the settlement's website: http://www.goodyear-veba-settlement.com/

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