GM may cut workers’ health care, union says

http://www.daytondailynews.com/business/gm-may-cut-workers-health-care-union-says-197812.html

By John Nolan , Staff Writer Updated 2:28 AM Friday, July 10, 2009

MORAINE — The union that represented General Motors Corp. workers at the now-closed Moraine sport utility vehicle assembly plant says it is concerned that GM will seek U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval to dump or severely reduce the company’s health-care obligations to retirees and active workers.

The International Union of Electronic Workers-Communications Workers of America has an agreement with GM to provide the health-care coverage, said Jim Clark, the IUE-CWA’s president, based in Moraine. It covers nearly 30,000 retirees plus a total of about 1,000 active workers at IUE-CWA-represented plants in Warren, Ohio; Brookhaven, Miss., and Clinton, Miss., he said.

But U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Gerber, who is overseeing GM’s bankruptcy reorganization, already has allowed GM to sell most of its assets to a “new” GM and leave financial obligations — including the health-care liabilities — behind in the “old” GM. The union is concerned that GM’s next step is to ask the judge to relieve the company of those obligations, Clark said in a telephone interview Wednesday, July 8.

A proposal GM has offered would increase the participants’ monthly upfront costs from about $25 now to $240 or so, and would impose a $5,000 deductible before coverage would kick in, Clark said.

“This is devastating to the community, no doubt about it,” Clark said.

GM is not commenting on objections to the bankruptcy reorganization plan, company spokeswoman Sherrie Childers Arb said.

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