Word: uaw
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first time since 1970, the United Auto Workers has launched a nationwide strike against General Motors Corp. The labor stoppage, involving more than 73,000 union members, began at 11 a.m. on Monday after GM and the UAW failed to reach an accord on a contract that could potentially lead to sweeping changes in the financing of health care for retired workers...
...export vehicles to the U.S. in about one year. Surprised union members cited job security as the key issue as they walked out of GM assembly plants around Detroit. "They just told us we were going on strike and it was about job security," said one member of UAW Local 594 in Pontiac, Mich. only moments after the strike began. In fact, UAW officials acknowledged that they had made scant preparation for the walkout until Monday morning...
...this case it's the unions that will have to bear the risk of hikes in health-care costs. The UAW will have to face the same hard choices the automakers do: balancing rising expenses with limited funds and a promise to cover everyone. "They cannot control it. They can't," says Uwe Reinhardt, an economist at Princeton University and an expert on health policy. "The union will just lose that deal." And before long, he says, the UAW will find itself having to limit choices, reduce costs and ask members to contribute money to keep the plan afloat...
Those concerns are weighing heavily on UAW members, who are very much aware that VEBAs at Caterpillar and Detroit Diesel have gone bankrupt. Three former UAW executive board members recently signed a letter criticizing the VEBA plan as "knowingly placing members at risk." The other option, though, is losing retiree health benefits entirely. "If you don't go along with a VEBA, the automakers may reach a point where the only alternative is to file Chapter 11," says Eric Merkle of IRN Automotive Intelligence. "The UAW has to take on more of the risk...
Perhaps the greatest significance of the coming GM-UAW deal is that it's another step in the decline of employer-sponsored health care. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger says he would prefer a single-payer system, which would relieve the burden for both GM and the union. That won't fly, but presidential candidates will offer other ideas. The crisis in Detroit shows, in the extreme, that corporate paternalism in the form of health insurance has outlived its usefulness. GM's biggest mistake may have been to assume that it would always be strong enough to handle the promises...