Shifting the burden of healthcare costs over to the UAW in January of '09. How in the hell can the UAW finance this cost?
This is so obvious....didn't we just learn from the meltdown of Wall Street that unsustainable costs and overwhelming, consistent losses put you out of business?
Can someone in Washington step up and just say it? For Chrissakes, the Big 3 have admitted they are finished. The bailout provides nothing more than borrowed time and stall-tactics.
A union-run health care trust known as a voluntary employee benefit association, or VEBA, was supposed to help the automakers escape bankruptcy by capping the amount they would pay for retiree health care expenses. For the retirees, the VEBA was described as insurance against losing retiree health care benefits should the automakers file for bankruptcy. The money would be available for retiree health care regardless of how the automakers fared.
The UAW is scheduled to take over responsibility for providing health benefits to more than 700,000 members and dependents January 1, 2010. Union president Ron Gettelfinger rallied UAW members to support the VEBA in 2007 by saying it would secure retiree health care benefits for the next 80 years. Ghilarducci says that given the current state of the industry, there is a low probability that the fund will last that long. Current retirees health care benefits were not in doubt, however.
Source: www.workforce.com
This is so obvious....didn't we just learn from the meltdown of Wall Street that unsustainable costs and overwhelming, consistent losses put you out of business?
Can someone in Washington step up and just say it? For Chrissakes, the Big 3 have admitted they are finished. The bailout provides nothing more than borrowed time and stall-tactics.
A union-run health care trust known as a voluntary employee benefit association, or VEBA, was supposed to help the automakers escape bankruptcy by capping the amount they would pay for retiree health care expenses. For the retirees, the VEBA was described as insurance against losing retiree health care benefits should the automakers file for bankruptcy. The money would be available for retiree health care regardless of how the automakers fared.
The UAW is scheduled to take over responsibility for providing health benefits to more than 700,000 members and dependents January 1, 2010. Union president Ron Gettelfinger rallied UAW members to support the VEBA in 2007 by saying it would secure retiree health care benefits for the next 80 years. Ghilarducci says that given the current state of the industry, there is a low probability that the fund will last that long. Current retirees health care benefits were not in doubt, however.
Source: www.workforce.com