The United Auto Workers union has told local leaders that it won’t reopen its contract with General Motors before 2007 but may ask workers to shoulder more of the troubled auto maker’s health-care costs, several people who attended the meeting told the Associated Press (AP).
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“We’re trying to help this corporation as best we can,” Al Coven, president of UAW Local 699, which represents a Delphi Corp. (DPH) steering plant in Saginaw, Michigan, told the news agency. “GM has been good to me. It isn’t going to bother me one bit if I have to pay more for my health care.”
The meeting came two days after GM Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner told shareholders that the company wants to close plants and eliminate 25,000 manufacturing jobs by 2008. Wagoner’s comments weren’t part of Thursday’s agenda, although they were on union members’ minds.
“Everybody’s worried about their jobs,” Oscar Bunch, president of UAW Local 14 in Toledo, Ohio, told AP.
UAW vice president Richard Shoemaker, the chief GM negotiator, discussed GM’s health-care costs but didn’t talk about any specific plans to cut costs, Bunch and others reportedly said. More than 100 union leaders attended the meeting.
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By GlobalDataShoemaker told AP he has told GM management that the UAW won’t reopen its contract before it expires in 2007, said Linda Blaine-Motter of UAW Local 909 in Warren, Michigan.
But Shoemaker indicated the union will work within the contract to lower costs, she said.
The Associated Press noted there is precedent for such agreements. Chrysler and the UAW recently negotiated a new health-care pact without reopening their contract. The agreement requires around 35,000 Chrysler hourly workers and retirees to start paying deductibles of between $US100 and $1,000 for health care that previously was free.
AP said GM spent $5.2 billion last year to cover 1.1 million salaried and hourly employees, retirees and family members and has said the amount could grow to $5.8 billion this year.
UAW-covered hourly workers pay 7% of their total health-care costs, according to GM. Salaried employees pay 27%, while the average U.S. corporate employee pays 32%, GM told AP.
Bunch told the news agency union members need to take seriously the threat that GM could cut retirees’ health-care benefits or declare bankruptcy.
“What people don’t realise is that GM has to have 28% of the market share to pay their bills,” Bunch told the Associated Press.
