Shareholders complain about BellSouth retiree benefits

<p>BellSouth Corp. retirees complained at the telecommunications company's annual shareholder meeting Monday about a lack of increases in their pension benefits despite rising gas prices and out-of-pocket medical expenses.</p><p>Some retirees also noted that their ability to recoup the extra expenses through their investment in the Atlanta-based company has been hampered by BellSouth's stagnant stock price, which today is roughly half the value it was six years ago.</p><p>The company, which recorded $1.1 billion in total pension expenses for retirees last year, has not given a cost-of-living adjustment to its more than 60,000 retirees since 1998, and it currently has no plans in the works for future increases, chief executive Duane Ackerman said.</p><p>In responding to the concerns, Ackerman said the changing industry landscape has caused BellSouth to be cautious in increasing pension benefits when it runs surpluses because it may need that money for its business.</p><p>"A program that may have worked in a monopoly environment doesn't work very well in a competitive market," Ackerman told shareholders gathered at a suburban conference center. "This is not an easy issue for our company. We do care about you and this issue."</p><p>That was little comfort for a handful of BellSouth retirees who stood up at the meeting to complain about their benefits.</p><p>"We are in desperate need because of the way the economy is going," Paul Pickard of Stone Mountain, Ga., told Ackerman.</p><p>Pickard noted that the company has talked a lot about its commitment to values.</p><p>"Back when I worked, these values included the employees," he said. Addressing Ackerman directly, he said, "I would certainly hope you would go to bat for us."</p><p>Another retiree, Hubert Blankenship of Douglasville, Ga., said retirees should be entitled to increases in their benefits because of the high salaries and bonuses paid to senior executives at BellSouth.</p><p>"It looks like to me that money is not going out of the bottom, it's going out of the top," he said.</p><p>In other business at the meeting, shareholders re-elected the 10 members of the board of directors to another one-year term and ratified PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the company's independent auditor. A shareholder proposal that would have required the company to disclose to investors its political contributions was rejected.</p><p>Ackerman said BellSouth's business is strong. Looking ahead, he said the company will focus more on its wireless, long-distance and DSL businesses to deal with continued losses in local access lines. He noted there will be challenges ahead because of consolidation in the industry.</p><p>"We know we'll have to leverage all of our strengths against these new combinations," the chief executive said.</p><p>BellSouth shares rose 29 cents, or 1.1 percent, to close at $26.10 in trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.</p>