Word: union
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...health care of thousands of retired autoworkers is about to change: on May 29 the membership of the United Auto Workers overwhelmingly approved a restructuring plan with GM, according to UAW president Ron Gettelfinger. The plan gives the union's health-care vehicle some promissory notes, plus a 17.5% stake in GM and warrants to purchase another 2.5%. (See TIME's photo-essay "General Motors Factory-scapes...
...Future cost projections are even more chilling, since money to meet those projections is dwindling fast. In 2007, GM and the union estimated that it would require an investment of $57 billion to provide future health care for GM's blue collar retirees, even after trimming some benefits. GM's VEBA is more than a little shy of that number. It had $14.4 billion in the middle of 2008, and now has only $9.4 billion in assets, which is beyond the reach of creditors but would barely last three years in the face of escalating health-care costs. Gettelfinger describes...
...Chrysler has only 78,000 retirees, compared with GM's army of 377,000, but the financials don't line up any better for its VEBA, which has only $1.6 billion in cash - a fact that is already raising anxiety inside the union. Chrysler is expected to get $6 billion in new federal aid as it steps out of bankruptcy court, but Chrysler/Fiat is obligated to steer just $381 million into the VEBA next year. One possible save: in a little-noted facet of the new labor contract with Fiat, the VEBA can sell its shares to the Italian automaker...
...Gettelfinger insists that the union has already made substantial cuts to health-care costs. In less than four years, blue collar retirees have gone from modest co-pay fees and deductibles to footing 25% of the bill for their health care. The new UAW contracts also include reductions in benefits: dental and vision coverage will be dropped, effective July 1. "The UAW has always been willing to sacrifice to help these companies," Gettelfinger says. "When this started, we were on third base before the other stakeholders were even in the ballpark...
...Activists like Miller are calling for stricter hiring processes for teachers - the kind of psychological and polygraph testing, for example, that police are subject to - and they have complained that school boards and teachers' unions have blocked legislative efforts to more effectively ferret out potential or actual abusers. But Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the Florida Teachers Association, the state's major teachers' union, insists the group is doing its part to attack the problem and raise teacher awareness. At the same time, he points out, unions have an obligation to help teachers who are themselves victims of bogus accusations, which...