To all United Airlines Teamsters,
Recently, a letter from United was mailed to each of your home addresses about a free protection program available through Alight Solutions. If you follow the steps provided within the letter, the Program will reimburse your CARP account in the event of any unauthorized activity through no fault of your own.
This letter was distributed to the membership without notice to the Union. As a result, many of you began contacting your local stewards and Business Agents with your questions and concerns.
As the IBT Benefits Coordinator, I sent United an email regarding the letter and many of the items brought up from members on the floor. The carrier responded with the following information which hopefully will address some of the questions and concerns you may have. Please reach out to your local steward or Business Agent if you have any further concerns.
In Solidarity,
Mike Moats, IBT Benefits Coordinator _______________________________________________________________________________
Thank you for reaching out and bringing us the concerns about the Alight Protection Program notice. We would like to clarify a few items and hopefully help you to understand why the notice was sent and what it means. The letter directs participants directly to YBR or the United Benefits Center, not to any third party or alternate website.
Importantly, there is no change to Alight’s commitment to data security and data privacy. The Alight Protection Program (“APP”) is an Alight program to help put an extra layer of protection on the accounts of the participants they administer. The APP does this by alerting participants to changes on their accounts via text messages. Without text messaging enabled, participants are notified of account changes via postal mail, which takes much longer to receive a notification of the change. Federal law requires participants to “elect in to” text messaging, so the active election is necessary.
There are only two actions a participant needs to take:
1) A participant needs to ensure they are signed up for text messaging with the correct mobile telephone number on file.
2) If the participant receives a text message regarding unauthorized activity, they need to contact the UABC immediately. The rest of the action items are simply reminders of how to protect your information. Alight has robust data security procedures, however when a third-party acts on behalf of a participant, the liability of loss may fall on the participant. So, the intent of this program is to get ahead of the breach before any monies are lost.
Here is an example: A participant is receiving a monthly annuity $1,000. A nephew of a participant attains a participant’s credentials, which allows the individual to gain access to the account and change the bank account information. A text message would be triggered to the participant informing them that a change has been made to their account. If they did not make this change, they would be able to contact the Benefits Center promptly to resolve the issue and not have the $1,000 paid to a false bank account.
Without text messaging capabilities, a letter would be mailed to the participant notifying of the bank account change. The participant may not receive this letter before the next benefit payment date. In this case, the payment would be made to the false account, and the participant would have lost $1,000. In a case like this, the benefit may not be reimbursable to a participant, as the credentials were attained through a third-party, not through a security breach on Alight’s part.
You are correct that a participant does not have access to CARP benefits until separated from United. However, this program will be in place at the time they do separate, so opting into text messaging now will put them into the program once separated.
We have requested the FAQs from Alight and will provide you with those as soon as available.