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----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, June 17, 2010 2:05 AM Subject: UAW health care causes ill will The medical insurance reform law is not National Health Care. Al. UAW health care causes ill will Published: Tuesday, June 15, 2010 By JOSPEH SZCZESNY Of The Oakland Press Despite the passage of new health care, the cost of health care benefits remains a major issue for the United Auto Workers as its leaders gather for the union's 35th Constitutional Convention in Detroit. Meanwhile, the union has endorsed a tentative contract proposal at General Motors Nexteer or Saginaw Steering Gear unit that sharply limits the health care coverage for some employees. Under the proposal, Nexteer employees are scheduled to vote on soon, recently hired temporary employees will become full-time workers. But in a what critics of the agreement describe as a chilling foretaste of what other new employees will face in the future, their health-care coverage will be limited to their own need and will not provide health care for their families. Dean Parm, an alternate convention delegate from UAW Local 699 in Saginaw, which represents Nexteer employees, said he is opposed to the tentative agreement because it creates different classes of employees. Nexteer’s legacy employees, or employees with long term seniority, will continue to get a full-package of health care benefits, while “second-tier” employees hired in the past four years when the steering gear unit belonged to Delphi also will continue to get health care for their family. “It’s just not right. You would have people working side by side who get health care for their families with people who don’t,” he said. “Where are their families supposed to get health care?” The Nexteer complex off I-75 in Buena Vista Township now has about 2,100 employees including almost 250 legacy employees, 1500 second tier employees and about 350 temporary employees, Parm said. Since the UAW contracts have often served as a model for employer-provided health-care coverage, the changes embedded in the contract proposal could find their way into other union agreements and into the insurance coverage of other companies around the U.S. “This excuse for a union contract shatters solidarity; divides and subdivides the membership into multiple tiers and “buckets”; kicks new hires in the teeth; cuts wages; worsens working conditions; deprives the families of new hires including current temps of health care; and does “nothing” to secure jobs,” said Gregg Shotwell, the founder of Soldiers of Solidarity and a longtime critic of the UAW’s leadership. The proposed Nexteer Contract also calls for workers to accept pay cuts averaging about $2 per hour in exchange for “buydowns,” which make up some of the lost income during the term of the proposed agreement, which extends until 2015. Tom Newberry, Local 699, has said in interview that circulated on the Internet the agreement, in addition to making the temporary employees permanent, will create about 200 additional job openings. The area around Saginaw and Bay City has been hit hard but auto-related job losses. Nexteer became a wholly owned subsidiary of GM last year when Delphi Corp. emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It has since operated as a standalone basis, suppling GM and about 60 other automobile companies with power-steering components, while GM tries to find a buyer to run the company long term. GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson said Tuesday GM has not yet found a buyer yet. Nevertheless speculation about Nexteer have involved a Chinese company that is looking to expand in the United States. Meanwhile, during a debate over a health-care resolution presented to the convention, several union members said the US needed a single-payer system, which would eliminate the need to bargain with employers for health insurance. “Every time we go to the bargaining table, health care is an issue,” noted one speaker. Companies that offer employee health insurance expect another steep jump in medical costs next year, and more will ask workers to share a bigger chunk of the expense, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers report. The UAW resolution adopted by the convention said the union, as it as for more than 60 years, continues to favor a single-payer, but praised the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. “The new law represents real and significant benefits,” said the resolution, which was adopted unanimously. ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
