November 29, 2003

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

There have been many questions regarding the pension improvements in the tentative agreement.  You may have had a chance to see an example with the pension improvement.  With this example that we received from the Company, they used Gary McGrath if he were to retire at age 62.  This however, did not include any future contributions to his Social Security.  With the proposed improvement, his pension benefit will increase for at least the next ten years or until he retires because it is tied to social security.

To get a better feel for what your benefit increase on the pension would be, we have a website link for you to refer to.  The link is a social security calculator and uses assumptions based on your age, years of service, and future years of service.
Here is the site http://www.ssa.gov/planners/calculators.htm  You can do the "Quick", "Online" or the "Detailed".  After you calculate your social security, all you need to do is multiply this amount by 5 percent or by 0.05 to determine how much the proposed pension improvement means to you.

There are a few important things to remember.
· Check the "inflated (future) dollars" when entering your data.  This will give you estimated future cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) and estimated future percentage increases in the national average wage index (AWI).
· Your retirement benefit social security offset is based of your projected social security at the age of 65
· This social security offset is only based upon those pensionable earnings while employed at Alliant Energy- WP&L
· The Current Plan reduces your pension by 50% of your projected Social Security at the age of 65
· The Proposed plan reduces your pension by 45% of your projected Social Security at the age 65
· Please do these calculations yourself, you will probably be surprised.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us.

In Solidarity,
Your Negotiating Committee,
Shawn Reents
Mike Pyne
Gary McGrath
Bob Jung