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Subsequent Events (Notes)
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2014
Subsequent Events [Abstract]  
Subsequent Events
Subsequent Events
On February 22, 2015, the Company entered into collective bargaining agreements with two of its labor unions in northern New England covering approximately 1,700 employees in the aggregate. The qualified defined benefit pension plan for represented employees is closed for new employees. For existing employees, past accruals have been frozen and future defined benefit accruals will be at 50% of prior rates and capped after 30 years of total credited service. In addition, the post-retirement healthcare plan for active represented employees has been eliminated, except for a transitional monthly stipend for eligible employees who elect to retire in the first 30 months of the contract period. To be eligible for the stipend, an employee must, among other criteria, have been granted a pension under the qualified defined benefit pension plan.
As a result of the changes to the Company's employee benefits resulting from the collective bargaining agreements, the pension and post-retirement healthcare plans will be remeasured and adjusted in the first quarter of 2015. The Company expects this to result in a decrease in the associated liabilities. Had the terms of the collective bargaining agreements relative to pension and post-retirement healthcare plans been used to value the Company’s pension and post-retirement healthcare obligations at December 31, 2014, assuming all assumptions used to value the obligations on that date (including the discount rates) remained unchanged, the Company estimates that the accrued pension obligations on the consolidated balance sheet would have been lower by approximately $35 million to $45 million and the accrued post-retirement healthcare obligations on the consolidated balance sheet would have been lower by approximately $620 million to $640 million. In addition, the Company estimates a decrease in the deferred income tax asset associated with the qualified pension and post-retirement healthcare obligations, partially offset by a decrease in the valuation allowance, of approximately $30 million to $40 million as of December 31, 2014. The Company does not expect any impact on its net operating loss carryforwards. Estimates as of December 31, 2014 are presented for comparative purposes only. The obligations for the Company’s qualified pension plan for represented employees and our post-retirement healthcare plan will each be remeasured and, therefore the actual results may differ materially from our December 31, 2014 estimates for reasons that may include, among others, changes in discount rates, changes in census data and/or changes in other assumptions.