GE unions seek improvements as company seeks to cut

Omaha Steve

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Sun Jun-03-07 07:43 PM
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GE unions seek improvements as company seeks to cut

http://www.laborradio.org/node/6071

GE unions seek improvements as company seeks to cut - 06/04/07

Lede: Unions at GE are looking for improvements in their next labor contracts as one of the world’s most profitable corporations tries to cut back on health insurance coverage for retirees. WIN’s Doug Cunningham has the story.

By Doug Cunningham

: “We’ve created the profit, we’ve created the wealth for this company. And we damned sure expect a fair contract form this company. And anything less than that will be unacceptable.”

Frank Fusco, President of UE Local 506 in Erie, Pennsylvania, expressing the union point of view on the labor contract talks under way at General Electric. Fusco says so far the biggest issue at the talks – he calls it “the animal that we’re wrestling with” - is the desire by GE to make 65 the earliest retirement age for new hires. That would mean no company-paid health insurance in retirement. Fusco doesn’t think that will fly and he says the unions at GE expect to make gains in this new contract.

: “We’re gonna come up with some wages, we expect that our pension is going to increase. We expect to make a lot of headway. And we expect at the end of the day we’re going to beat back this animal, too.”

There are about 23,000 GE workers represented by different unions. But the contract terms they win are often also provided to more than 100,000 GE workers.

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