Eastman Kodak wants to terminate retiree benefits by the end of the year.
It says it has reached agreement with its Official Committee of Retirees to eliminate medical, dental, life insurance and survivor income benefits for tens of thousands of former workers.
The company says it will provide the Committee with 7 and a half million dollars in cash, a 15-million dollar administrative claim and 635-million dollar unsecured claim to subsidize a limited portion of future benefit costs.
That, it says, would satisfy the company's 1.2-billion dollar Post-Employment Benefits liability.
A spokesman for the Kodak retiree group, EKRA, Art Roberts, released a statment.
He said "Although EKRA has not seen the details of the Kodak plan, we are very disappointed that the information about such a dramatic change in health and welfare benefits became known via the public court venue.
He went on to say "It is especially disappointing that neither Kodak nor the Official Retiree Committee, who worked on this for the past 5 months, felt it was important to communicate to retirees the direness of the Kodak situation, nor in any way to indicate the Draconian result they were about to reveal.
This, coupled with not seeking input, makes this news all the more shocking."
A hearing on the agreement with the court-appointed retiree committee will be held in bankruptcy court October 29th.