General Electric Unions To Strike Over Employee Health Cost Increases

The International Union of Electrical-Communications Workers of America and United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America -- the two unions with nationwide contracts with General Electric -- announced that they will strike to protest increases in employee health care costs, the Washington Post reports. According to Gary Sheffer, a spokesperson for GE, the company plans to increase employee costs for physician visits and other health care costs by 40%, from about $500 to $700 per year, and overall employee costs would increase about 20% more than the current $1,000 per year. GE officials said that the company's health care costs have increased 45% in the past few years, from $965 million in 1999 to $1.4 billion last year (McNeil Hamilton, Washington Post, 1/1). In October, the IUE-CWA voted unanimously to authorize a national strike in the event that GE raises health care costs for employees and retirees. The move would mark the first national strike at GE since 1969 and would affect 15,000 employees, or about 5% of the company's workforce (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 10/28/02). The unions said that they will set a strike date after the employee health care cost increases take effect. Health insurance costs increased 12.7% between 2001 and 2002, according to a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, and many companies are "testing the limits" on the amount of the cost increase that they can pass on to employees, the Post reports. "Rising health care costs mean that health care benefits and who should pay for the increases are going to be an issue in almost every set of negotiations until those increases disappear," Rick Banks, director of collective bargaining for the AFL-CIO, said, adding, "And that's not going to happen anytime soon" (Washington Post, 1/1).