GM: Less Choice For You! (Union Workers)

The Detroit Free Press reports: UAW deal with GM offers fewer health plans. We wonder whether GM management has the same plan. We'd bet not.

We look at this healthcare situation this way: If the UAW can't get a great deal, none of us can. We've read comments on our fellow car blogs where folks write: "It's time for the UAW to get into the real world and join the rest of us." We take that to mean where we all have crappy health coverage that costs too much. But why would anyone want others to be in the same crappy boat? Wouldn't it be better to be in the better boat? Now of course we're not suggesting everyone join the UAW. Rather, why not want the same benefits they have? Or your boss? Or your boss's boss?

This problem has been a long time coming, and it's only going to get worse. And even if workers are stripped of more and more benefits, the products we purchase are never going to get better, cheaper or safer because the healthcare for workers has been reduced. The only results of fewer benefits will be higher corporate profits and fatter bonuses for upper management. And sicker workers.

Here's a great read about The Labor Lessons GM Never Learned. And while this references GM, it applies to all corporations. And all workers everywhere.

So before you criticize the autoworkers union on healthcare,* remember, Where the unions go, we eventually all go.

*We're not saying the union shouldn't be criticized at all. Everything should be looked at with a critical eye. That's how you recognize successes and identify areas to improve. Whether it's unions, cars or Alison. Strike that last one. Alison is sooo perfect. Heck, anyone who gets to touch Dolly Parton is awesome!

Comments

[carbuzzard]

Blue collar and white collar employees have been treated differently since the dawn of organized labor. For example, blue collar employees have certain layoff and firing protection. Not so non-unionized white collar. When blue collar workers work outside of their normal worktime, they get paid overtime. For white collar, usually not so.

So now that the UAW will be responsible for maintaining the health insurance program for union members, the UAW will be able to do what they want. It seems like that would be a victory for the union, liberating its employees from company control. I guess the answer here is to be careful what you wish for; you just might get it.

BTW, as I understand it, under S-CHIP, a 24-year old would be considered a "child."

[Bill Hawley]

You're right. In this country, we worry too much about bringing everyone slightly above us down to our level rather than focusing on the big chiefs who have it so much better than us underlings and trying to get what THEY have. We need more populism and less everyone-for-himself. George Bush and his cronies don't want poor kids who are sick to have socialized medicine even though he doesn't have a problem with us taxpayers shelling out for HIS socialized medicine.