GM drops workers’ health care during strike, a sign UAW impasse could drag on | Hacker News Reader

GM drops workers’ health care during strike, a sign UAW impasse could drag on

washingtonpost.com

34 pointshoward94124 comments

Yet more proof that our method of tying health insurance to employers is completely insane.

Yes, It is a national shame that the USA has such bad average health care. The rich havd the best in the world. The poor die young. Just look at the age stats for Cuba versus the USA in these charts etc. Yes, Cubans outlive Americans, so do Canadians. All dues to crooked Doctors, insurers, pharma companys, hospitals and... https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.dyn.le00.in

https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publicatio... https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

When unions want contract obligations on job security it reminds me of a Jack Welch quote. To paraphrase: "GE doesn't give you job security, the market gives you job security"

How can GM commit to not reducing workforce if sales decline? Just running a deficit?

I think their biggest ask is for GM to stop using temp workers to get around union obligations. When you have a "temp worker" who has been working for you for 4-5 years, they should probably be classified as an employee.

What about the half of Google workers who are merely contractors?

However that doesn't impact current union employees. Is it just the union fearing for its own loss of power?

In part, though I think it's more complicated than just a loss of power. The responsibilities for employers are getting more and more expensive so they are doing the rational thing and switching to contractors.

Yeah, I don't want to sound anti-union, but I really don't understand what the expectation is here.

Workers sitting around doing nothing all day? GM producing excess inventory?

A greater share with workers of billions in GM profits. Their CEO makes $21 million a year. Is their CEO worth that? Better get wrenching then, because striking is costing GM $50-100 million per day.

Separately, hopefully the UAW sees the benefit in universal healthcare, and supporting candidates backing it.

> Separately, hopefully the UAW sees the benefit in universal healthcare, and supporting candidates backing it.

I've read in a news article that UAW workers get 95% of premium paid by the employer. I'm not sure how accurate that is but that is way better than most other plans. Most of my employers covered 90% of the premium. I doubt an universal healthcare plan could do any better (except for coverage during strikes.) Even the current medicare plans have hefty premiums and copays.

Unions spoil workers in collusion with manglement. Manglement surrenders to wage demands and passes it on as higher prices and ups the use of robots which layts off workers. Those left are well paid and they are the older people and the company loses in the market place as imports enter. I recall a time with 500,000 workers at the big three. Now what? 35,000 or so left. The big problem is 4 year contracts and COLA clauses. a guy at $15 versus a guy at $35 with health and other benefits automatically paid as they climb. We need annual contracts, industry wide = no pattern bargaining where they harm the weakest to make them yield wage increases they can not afford and the USA weakens. max 1 year contract, You loes one month = a little over 8% of wages lost. No signing bonuses. 100% strike of all car makers so 2/3rds can not stay at work and cross subsidize the strikers.

and in the COLA increase, the COLA is based on the average of workers. Fringe benefits, health, pensions, legals etc can be $30 PER HOUR all tax free. Make those taxable and allow the workers to have that fringe benefit as cash. The UAW exists is such a distorted world... I would like to see Snowden post all auto worker contracts on line and see how they have sucked money from us all and hurt tha nation.

I hear this argument brought up a lot relating to minimum wage at McDonalds. "IF THEY RAISE IT THEY'LL JUST FIRE EVERYONE". Guess what, they already started replacing cashiers with touch screens. Those 400k would've been replaced by robots whether or not the union was there, all that happened was while those 400k jobs were essential to making GM money, those workers got to have a decent life.

McDonalds sees the writing on the wall with the minimum wage and living wage debates. They are proactively mitigating future issues with paying more money to employees.

The biggest problem is wage(with benefits) inequity with the UAW people consuming a total package cost of $65 or so per hour with a large pirtion made up of benefits and pensions and vacations, while the MacDonalds people get $15 plus?? Yet these people do jobs of similar complexity. The MacDonalds guys have to buy the cars the UAW guy makes - but they can not or can only by used ones. The UAW guys can buy all the burgers they want and have $$ left over. There is not such a wide disparity in Germany. In the USA the UAW and Management are bitter enemies, in Germany they have board seats - the UAW refuses these seats, they want a hostile basis, they do not want German style wage committees. These committees often ask for a smaller raise because too big a raise hurts the copmany and makes them pull too far ahead of the lower workers. Economies work best when all the workers can buy the products of each other. It is not surprise that German is the dynamo of europe. France is like a UAW paradise, workers versus management. You can not lay people off in France, so wheh you get more orders there are now new workers hired - you get longer delivery times. France is the drugged hippy of europe. The others, Greece, Spain, Italy etc fill in the middle and a few are at the bottom. All badly managed with greedy unions, except Germany. They vote socialist or communist, yet their socialist workers or communist workers run their countries into deep debt - but not Germany. Think about it.

I think the biggest issues with unions is the focus on seniority over merit. Collective bargaining isn't a bad thing to counter the power of capital but the focus of a union needs to not be linked to how long you've been at a company.

Yes, seniority staffs the place with aged slackers.

This should be illegal. It's nothing more than a strongarm attempt by GM against the union.

How long should an employer provide health-insurance to a person who is not working?

If we're being honest and responsible, until that employee has found other employment.

Sure, it'd grant some people poorer than the average HN reader a significantly more reliable safety net along with some mobility and autonomy, but how quickly do you think it would take until the corporate sponsors started championing a program that benefits everyone, like medicare for all?

Things are bad for a lot of people, and maybe my thinking is old fashioned, but the health of a nation isn't a game of winners and losers that needs to be run like a casino.

If they're part of a union that's on strike? For the duration of the strike, or until their employment ends, whichever comes first.

Who determines when their employment ends?

The employer has the right to fire whomever it wishes. The employee has the right to quit whenever he wishes. Why would one expect an employer to pay compensation or benefits to an employee who doesn’t show up to work? Unions have a right to organize. And employers have the right to fire every last one of them and go non-union. Do you not agree?

Employment ends when the employee quits or the employer fires the employee. However, you are wrong: they do not have the right to fire striking employees. That violates the National Labor Relations Act. In fact, dropping the workers' insurance policy might also violate the NLRA.

I am guessing GM has no plans to allow the current insurance to continue.

This is their way of saying the new insurance is going to be more expensive and more in line with national averages.

No work, no compensation, seems reasonable.

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