DiMasi’s plan is unnecessary.
The speaker’s proposal implies that municipal leaders across the state are seeking to enter the GIC and the local unions are resisting unreasonably. That is not the case. According to health insurance analysts at Boston Benefits Partners, the GIC issue has not even been raised in hundreds of communities – the vast majority of the state’s 351 cities and towns. That may well be because they believe that their own plans are adequate, or that competition from the GIC has forced their current insurance providers to lower rates.
In the overwhelming majority of instances where a municipality or regional school district has seriously pursued entering the GIC, the local unions have agreed after negotiating the specific terms. Public employees have rejected entering the GIC in only one community where a plan was fully negotiated and brought to them for a vote.
What’s with the anti-union bias?
All this time I was under the misinformation that unions operated by using fear, intimidation and secrecy. Now I find out from your post that they are cooperative, protective of their flock and probably altruistic in their endeavors. The horrible lies which I have heard from my Electrical Union friends, my Firefighter Union relatives and all the lies printed in the Boston Globe and other MSM have poisoned me against an obviously economically stimulating machine called unions.
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p>Is it possible to forward your post to the members of Congress before they decide on the bailout for Detroit to make sure they know the unions are good people and are simply trying to offer protection to their member from their employers and their working conditions.
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p>My first hand experience with the unions at the General Dynamics Shipyard in Quincy displayed how union rules and wages eventually caused the shipyard to close. But at least the workers were protected from the bad evil employers.
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p>And your contention is that even though hundreds of towns in this state which are in dire straights with regard to budgets, have not even approached their workers (teachers…) about the GIC. My town has discussed this many times and the teacher’s union has refused to even discuss it. Soon the layoffs will begin and every single teacher that get dropped can than their union for not even considering moving to GIC. Stoneham just saved $1M going to GIC. Hmmm, wonder why they waited till now, well guess why because the union refused to consider it and it took a $300K negotiation to finally sway them.
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p>Unions suck and they will destroy our economy. The only people who like unions are members of unions but you better stay in line because if you go against the union, that same “protecting” group will destroy you. Unions created this prevailing wage law which has driven unemployment up. If the big car companies were smart they would pack their bags and move to a state that encourages manufacturing jobs (Not MA for sure) like Toyota/Saturn have figured out. I hate unions!
insightful reply.
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p>How about reading my post now?
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p>Mark
the difference between Toyota and GM workers? $4 an hour.
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p>The whacko fringe right spin – the $78/hour figure – includes retirees… and completely ignores the fact that Toyota’s factories in the US are so new that they pretty much don’t have any!
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p>Keep drinking that kool-aid… spiked, this time, it seems…
Funny how in many arguments the “other” side drinks the kool-aid while your side is completely unbiased.
One statistic (yours) is no more convincing than one statistic (theirs).
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p>More of the picture is this: 1) the difference in hourly costs for ASSEMBLY LINE WORKERS is $4.25 ($31.25 versus 27.00) 2) The average cost per US hourly worker (aka the wacko fringe right spin) is $74.00 versus $48. 3) health care costs per vehicle $1500 versus $200.
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p>Now as you point out, the more modern plants require fewer labor hours to build a Toyota car. Also, as you imply, the $74 hourly rate does include retiree health funding. Yet more disadvantages for GM, et al.
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p>But so what? Regardless if you’re paying $74 for labor and you’re compelled to hire more bodies, GM is still paying more and Toyota isn’t, so GM is getting killed on per vehicle cost.
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p>It’s no different from the Pittsburgh Steel Mills of the early 80s and one by one, bankruptcy claimed them with reprecussions that lasted years but not a decade.
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p>Given history and the availability of the bankruptcy statutes, it appears that the burden of persuasion is on those lawmakers to make the argument that Chap 7/11 bankruptcy or even a pre-packaged legislated bankruptcy is somehow inferior to this short term bailout bandaid that will surely, barring a miraculous market reversal, have to be revisited early next year.
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p>I get the sense that the Dem leadership is pushing for the $14 billion bandaid as a shortterm payback to the UAW, thereby giving Congress time ’til they have greater numbers in 2009 for a more labour beneficial bailout.
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p>Actually, no. The surprising answer you get when using these misleading numbers is that, actually, the best way for GM to lower its cost/worker is to hire more! Surprised?
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p>The way they came up with that number was totalling all costs for employees including retirees and then dividing by the size of the current workforce. Does that make any sense? Not at all, but it does allow you to pretend that GM pays workers a lot more, when in fact what GM has is an unrealistic pension plan and a lot of past workers. In fact, current GM workers get paid, on average, a little bit less than Toyota workers.
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p>Now, hire more workers at the actual pay rate, and what happens? The denominator (number of current workers) increases a lot more in proportion to the numerator (total cost), giving you a smaller quotient (the fictional cost-per-worker).
GM: Help! We’re drowning in 20 feet of water.
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p>UAW: Can’t help you. It looks like 18 feet of water to us.
Is this supposed to be an argument about how great things are for GM? All of that tallys out to: their labor costs are dramatically higher than their competitors.
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p>I suppose it more clearly suggests that the only way to fix that is to screw the former employees.
I don’t know what “this is supposed to be” or what “argument” you’re referring to. I saw a blatantly false claim being bandied about, and corrected it. Or don’t facts matter?
More of the picture is this: 1) the difference in hourly costs for ASSEMBLY LINE WORKERS is $4.25 ($31.25 versus 27.00) 2) The average cost per US hourly worker (aka the wacko fringe right spin) is $74.00 versus $48. 3) health care costs per vehicle $1500 versus $200.
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p>Rather than giving the spin-du-jour, I simply laid out some facts spun by the union #1 and spun by anti-union #2. Both accurate, both nuanced to support the respective argument.
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p>Of the above facts, you now say one is ‘blatantly false’. Which one?
Further, and irrelevant fact-picking notwithstanding, if the point is that GM actually pays the workers only slightly more than Toyota, then a concession to parity isn’t much to ask of them, no?
… actual salary difference actually account for their problems right now. If the actual difference isn’t that much and also the impact of parity isn’t that much, then sure… a concession shouldn’t be too much to ask, but also the relative noise level being generated about parity is out of proportion to it’s impact on solving the problem. I’d suspect that such an out of proportion level of noise on the matter is indicative that some interests are more interested in political points than solving the problem. Or they are just misinformed as to the impact.
You know that. I was specific enough in my earlier comment to easily identify what I was talking about. Why be so thick-skinned and annoying about it?
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p>You have some other points that are worth talking about, but your mode of talking about it does not inspire me to bother to respond.
I have no idea how you can claim this statement is blantantly wrong: “The average cost per US hourly worker (aka the wacko fringe right spin) is $74.00 versus $48.”
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p>Fact is, it’s factually and literally correct. It’s not blantantly wrong, but it’s deceptive because it doesn’t tell the whole story.
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p>This statement is blantantly wrong: the difference in hourly costs between GM and Toyota is $4.25 ($31.25 versus 27.00). The $4.25 diff is between hourly ASSEMBLY LINE workers only.
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p>Yet, you seize upon the first statement and ignore the second, I presume, either in error, or to make some greater point or to spin the facts somehow.
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p>What your point is, we may never know because of your take the ball and go home attitude.
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p>Regardless, my point (ad naseum) is who cares which component of labor cost is higher for GM, whether it’s UAW salary, benefits or retiree perks. Who cares if GM is drowning in 20 feet of water or 19.5. The point is GM labor costs are higher, in part, because of the UAW contract.
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p>Now UAW isn’t stupid. They’re rational.
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p>UAW also knows that most Americans make less than UAW worker and aren’t particularly jazzed about subsidizing members wages. So UAW pushes the rhetoric that GM’s wage aren’t so much higher than everyone else –that it’s the retirees that’s the big difference.
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p>The trouble is that when they look ahead to a bankruptcy judge’s ruling, they recognize a judge might rightfully conclude that Medicare is good enough for all of America, why not GM retirees too.
Don’t compare the collapse of the steel industry to this situation… take a look at the balance sheets of those companies, up unti they started to close in the late 70’s (Black Monday in Youngstown was in 1978). They had unionized workforces that got paid a lot. But what didn’t get paid a lot was capital investment – they didn’t spend to keep the mills modern. Part of that was because they spent a lot on the workforce – the unions were fat, dumb, and happy, and comlicit..
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p>When the mills were collapsing, the workers made an attempt to buy them out, to have a workfore-run company. But a modern mill – an efficient one today – uses a third as many workers as the older mills. Do you think a union-run company could have made the hard decisions necessary – could have laid off 66% of their brothers and sisters – to stay competitive? No, and that is why unions can be as detrimental to change as anyone…. and we did just vote for a guy on his promise to change, right?
In both instances, any surviving viable industry will, necessarily, be one with far, far fewer employees. Which means fewer union members, and less political clout for the unions.
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p>That’s why the bailout that has been on the table– one designed to “save all those jobs”- is doomed to fail. Under the best case scenario, meaning one in which GM continues to exist, most UAW members are going to be looking for a new line of work.
I think, for the class reasons you suggest, too many liberals in Mass. find it difficult to simply follow the lead of working people when they advocate for their own interests.
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p>They often assume the right to evaluate every single union position or bargaining stance on their perception of its own merits, out of the context of the overwhelming need for solidarity and strength in the face of a decades-long assault by the corporate right, under which unions have lost badly.
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p>This will be important in card-check legislation, e.g., which is easily framed unfavorably to otherwise progressive voters. Don’t fetishize the secret ballot. Support workplace organization.
1: Liberals love the government and all its collective warm fuzzy goodness;
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p>2: To the public sector union, the government is the boss. i.e. the Man.
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p>3: Unions want to stick it to the Man
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p>4: Liberals like the Man
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p>ergo, Liberal don’t like public unions
I find that I distinguish pretty sharply between industrial unions on the one hand and teachers’ unions on the other. When I think of blue collar unions, I think of Reds, I start humming the Internationale, and I am filled with warm thoughts about my socialist forbearers. I get industrial unions. Individual laborers don’t have much bargaining power on their own, and industrial unions remedy that problem. Unions make sense in this context because–and I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way–industrial workers doing specialized industrial tasks that do not require higher education are, from the point of view of the employer and the finished product they are producing, more or less interchangeable with other workers doing the same task. The same is true of unskilled or semi-skilled labor in the service sector.
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p>I don’t really get teachers’ unions. Of course teachers should be well-paid and respected. We do a terrible job of this now, even though we have teacher’s unions. But teachers are not interchangeable, and thus their profession seems unsuited for collective bargaining. Malcolm Gladwell’s latest article highlights the really enormous difference between high-quality and low-quality teachers, which many of us have probably experienced first-hand. He also claims that (1) the quality of the teacher has an enormous impact on the outcome for the student; and (2) the qualifications we insist on for teachers (various formal credentials and degrees) have very little to do with the quality of the teacher. Now maybe he’s wrong about these points as a matter of fact, but if he’s right, then the idea of tenure, and the idea of equal pay for teachers of equal seniority, seem hopelessly foolish to me. Teachers are not factors of industrial production.
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p>TedF
I get teachers’ unions.
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p>Here’s my take on unions: Unions are a response to bad, inhumane management. If management seeks to unfairly exploit its workers, organization is the logical response.
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p>But unions are not needed if management is enlightened (or rejects the labor/management split entirely). I offer this not as an abstract notion; I have examples.
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p>I know of good managers that came into a unionized environment (in an automotive parts warehouse) that had very unhealthy labor-management relations. Five years later, the warehouse workers decertified the union; it was more of a hindrance than a help. The new management had totally changed the culture of the workplace, and treated the workers as valued members of the organization, and included them in decision-making.
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p>Back to my wife- she initially didn’t join the union because she perceived it to over-protect marginal teachers (the ones Gladwell says are dragging our kids down). But she got sufficiently annoyed by several relatively small, dumb decisions that she ended up joining. The straw that broke the camel’s back was getting docked a day’s pay for doing something for which she had the administration’s prior approval to do. Not a huge deal, but indicative of just sufficiently dickish management to keep union membership vibrant.
I disagree very strongly. In “traditional” forms of work, by which I really mean “industrial revolution through approximately the 1980s” style employment, there’s a structural imbalance of power between corporate owners, and the much larger number of workers (with management in the middle, but serving the owners primarily, and powerless to change that).
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p>Unions are a necessary part of making that situation work out best, for everyone’s benefit, just as elections are a necessary part of making democratic government work. We can’t just say “oh, if only we had enlightened civil servants and legislators, we wouldn’t need these elections.” The structure of the system makes them a necessary mechanism for feedback loops and balancing power.
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p>Work is changing, rapidly. I’m not sure unions are appropriate for a large new segment of the economy that Richard Florida dubbed “the creative class”. We’re going to take a while to figure out the right structures for that part of the economy. But in the meantime we’ve got a lot of traditional labor & administrative employment, and a growing service economy, and unions are needed for those.
I think Ted’s onto something here, albeit I don’t share all his enthusiasm for the cause of international socialism.
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p>In the private sectors, the concept of organized labor was and is a counterpart of the concept of organized capital. In the pre- and proto-industrial eras, there were few large employers and most work was done by individual craftsmen and artisans. Often, these people would hire journeymen and apprentices. Not only did the interpersonal contact make for a more humane relationship, but there was also more freedom of choice for employees because of the many options available.
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p>All that changed with widespread organized capital in the post-civil-war era. Large employers became the rule as capital pooled to form larger and larger entities. Decisions were made far from the factory floor, and employees came to be seen as just one more line in a ledger. [Indeed, the best criticism that can be made against neoclassical economics is that it treats labor as just a commodity when it’s not; it’s a human being.] Consequently, management would seek to get as much as possible out of workers (long days, speed-ups, etc.) for as little as possible (rock-bottom wages). Employees, given collective action problems and the often desperate state of their lives, had little choice but to go along with this.
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p>Organized labor, therefore, acts as a counterbalance to the excesses of organized capital. It forces capital to share proceeds of an organizion, and it gives attention for issues that might otherwise be given short-shrift by a profits-centric organization (worker safety, e.g.). Right-wingers often say that unions are a relic and no longer necessary. But looking back at the last thirty years, as we have enjoyed record corporate profits and zero wage growth, I think this basic dynamic is pretty much alive and well.
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p>In the public employment realm, however, there really is a different dynamic at play. First of all, management is not in the business of maximizing profits. The town manager of Stoneham doesn’t get a bonus if he finishes the year underbudget… at least, not enough of a percentage for him/her to really care about it. Rather, they are in the business of maximizing public support (i.e., votes), either directly or indirectly. So there isn’t the same balance of interests at the bargaining table. One side (the union) cares about maximzing compensation and employment; the other (town or state government) only cares about pushing back against that to the extent that it would jepoardize their positions or their other priorities. And because employees often live and vote in the same town or state in which they work, they often form a sizeable block of support to which management needs to pay concern. The dynamic that takes root, therefore, is not traditional labor-management negotiation, but rather classic public choice theory — concentrated benefits and diffuse costs.
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p>All of which is a long way of saying that collective bargaining in the public sector is qualitatively different than in the private sector and that everyone should be a little skeptical of the “sanctity of contract” reached through that process.
My hunch is that for a lot of commentators, the trouble with unions is that their members make more money than the non-union commentators do. People realize this is unfair, but they’re often wrong on why.
The trouble with public sector unions is that we have fire fighters drunk or high on cocaine and we can’t install a problem to do drug testing without paying them off with a higher salary.
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p>We have failing schools, and the only solution coming from the teachers unions involves class size (e.g. hire more teachers). God forbid someone actually be judged on their performance teaching children..
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p>We have MBTA conductors retiring after 23 years of work and living with a huge pension for another 40 years, forcing myself and my children to subsidize their New Hampshire lakehouse..
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p>And being that my town can’t afford benefits as it is, well, its not the people that make more that its unfair to.. its the people that make less and have to subsidize this through their income and property taxes..
No, I don’t think so (but maybe I’m, uh, biased, since it’s my post you’re talking about). I just don’t see any good argument against a municipality joining the GIC if doing so will save the municipality money. Will it mean less generous health benefits in some cases? Let’s stipulate that the answer is yes. But — and this is the important point — will it mean inadequate health care benefits in any cases? I think the answer to that is clearly no. This is, after all, the entity that buys health insurance for all state employees. And state employees are doing pretty well health insurance-wise — better than many in the private sector, including those who have employer-sponsored health insurance. I simply do not accept any argument that, because GIC doesn’t offer one particular health care plan, or requires a 15% employee contribution instead of the 10% that some unions have negotiated, GIC’s offerings are therefore inadequate.
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p>So, in those cases where GIC supplies adequate health insurance at less cost, there is no good reason why a municipality shouldn’t join. (It may in fact not save money in every case, in which case presumably the municipality will not choose to join in.) The 70% union buy-in, however, by definition makes that less likely to happen, because it must be negotiated. At best that will entail delay; in other cases, it may require “concessions” (i.e., higher costs) by the municipality in other areas, thereby reducing the benefit to the municipality’s budget, and making it harder to avoid laying off teachers, cops, firefighters, whatever.
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p>Am I making myself clear? Let me be a bit clearer. I do not see why anyone needs better health care benefits than those offered by GIC. I don’t think that makes me anti-union, but maybe your definition is different.
When MACAA surveyed bar advocates, before the health insurance mandate, less then 50% had health insurance and there was great interest in a “revenue neutral buy in”. Gotta agree – GIC would be good enough for me.
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p>Of course, “independent contractor professionals” aren’t allowed to unionize, in this case by statute. Any wonder that there was no rate-of-pay increase for 20 years, or that bar advocates get nickle-and-dime reductions whenever the economy looks sour and brownie points are needed?
town employees shouldn’t have to lose benefits. Towns that have negotiated in good faith with their unions have passed the GIC – it took some time, but my town just did so, by agreeing to pay more toward insurance costs. The GIC will cost many people more unless towns agree to split the difference in savings. Switching to the GIC can be good for everyone, but it’s not right to just take away everything from town employees without getting around the table and finding a fair compromise.
Now where’d I plant that money tree, again?
his backyard.
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p>right by the compost heap. he uses a nice mix of orange rinds, egg shells, and AIG preferred stock.
in collective bargaining, everyone should sacrifice something. or get something.
There really are different ways of looking at this. You could say that moving to GIC will create a new pot of cash for the town, and that it should be shared with employees as part of some windfall that has suddenly come onto the budget. On the other hand, you might think of the difference in administration costs between the GIC and municipal plans as “waste.” I.e., through economies of scale and market power, the GIC manages to deliver the same basic product for appreciably less money and any premium above that is essentially wasted. Looking at the situation through that lens, the public unions are essentially demanding payment to put an end to a practice most experts see as deadweight loss to society.
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p>Also, the whole genesis of this idea is to find low hanging budgetary fruit to prevent cuts to town budgets. So if some large percentage of the benefits of a switch will not be realized, and the process might create contention between the town and the unions, you have to wonder what the hell the point would be to doing it.
It’s not always or even usually a complete fair swap between GIC and municipal plans. From what I’ve gathered, the baseline plans that were the ones purported to save public employees money from current ones had much higher deductibles, etc. Thus, it’s not exactly “the same basic product.” So, while maybe most people would save money, some people would spend a heckuva lot more.
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p>But that doesn’t mean GIC is a bad idea, for a local example, it just took a fairly long negotiation to pass GIC in my town. We did so at the table, making sure every side got something. This is how things should work – there were no losers.
…there are lots of issues with the GIC (and health care in general) beyond the cost of premiums. The GIC offerings are complex because they cover employees across the entire state. Their offerings are segregated by service area so all plans are not offered to all people.
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p>Many cities and towns in Eastern Mass are not interested because the HMO offerings are weak in Eastern Mass and if the employees opt for the PPO then the towns will not save any money. (As the PPO is more expensive than HMO.) Keep in mind that the GIC Medicare supplement is more expensive than the BCBS options offered by competitors (and retirees are a significant though less expensive portion of the insured).
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p>Cities and Towns can negotiate the employer/employee premium splits as a way to transfer costs to employees without joining the GIC.
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p>The MMA has been lobbying for the right of plan design as strong as what the state has with its workers. If cities and towns could design their plans they would not need to join the GIC.
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p>Finally, the GIC has a very bad reputation for customer service as opposed tot he BCBS plans.
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p>But for people who don’t want to take the time to actually study the problem (like DiMasi and David say) the GIC bugaboo is an easy way to look like you are doing something to help cities and towns when you really aren’t.
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p>How about the millions and millions of dollars the state and localities are giving away in ineffective corporate and property tax breaks?
Part of what you’re saying is that the GIC doesn’t necessarily (in every town) offer gold-plated health care benefits. To that I say, well, things are tough all over. Private sector employers are dropping popular HMOs right and left because they are too expensive. This argument, without more, does nothing for me.
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p>You say sometimes joining GIC won’t save money. Presumably in those instances the municipality will not wish to join, in which the presence or absence of the 70% buy-in is irrelevant.
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p>You say:
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p>
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p>Yeah, theoretically. I’d be interested to know if anyone has had any success with that. The shitstorm that erupts every time the state proposes changing the employee contribution from 15% to 25% suggests to me that this is unlikely to work.
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p>You say:
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p>
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p>And if they could negotiate their own premiums. But they can’t, because they lack the GIC’s buying power. That’s the whole point, right? The GIC, in some cases, can supply comparable benefits at less cost because it has a lot of buying power. In those cases, towns will save money by joining.
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p>Customer service? I don’t know what you’re talking about there. If you’ve got information, I’d be interested to see it, but AFAIK the GIC has a decent reputation.
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p>Finally, as for “ineffective corporate and property tax breaks,” sure, I’m all for rolling back bad giveaways. Put some cards on the table — let’s see your ideas.
Here’s a long list of various tax breaks in the Governors budget site. No judgments here on which are most “effective” at stimulating jobs.
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p>
…the issue is not the purchasing power of the GIC. The issue is that state law allows the GIC to design the plan and benefits virtually unilaterally (there is a board made up of three management reps and two employee reps, guess how that works). Cities and towns can’t. Simple issue. The Mass Municipal Association has made this a major issue for years. Most cities and towns are part of buying coalitions that get them decent rates on plans that are not “gold plated”. While cities and towns rightly complain about how much their rates have increased over the past several years, how much have employee and retiree rates gone up at the same time? Much higher increases between the overall rates and the cost shifting that has occured by splits, deductibles and co-pays.
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p>As far as the splits…they have been negotiated down almost everywhere over the past few years. My town has been at 70/30 for quite some time. But David where are your “expletive” storm facts? These benefits are part of employee pay that have been negotiated into legal contracts why would they not be subject to negotiation. In negotiations hwoever, everyone gives a bit to get to win/win, and you have to have decent relationships to get that done. Of course you can take the unilateral mode and have bad relationships for a long time.
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p>The tax breaks are a major issue for another time because they require detailed ana;ysis. But check how many cities and towns are issuing tax breaks while crying poor. Someone needs to raise the issue of why the state is pushing cities and towns to give so much away too.
I’ve mentioned this before, but for some the GIC costs more for less coverage.
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p>Cape Cod towns have a coop with BC/BS, and the rates are based on expenses at our regional hospital, Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. Costs there are less than Boston teaching hospitals, so rates are less.
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p>With GIC, some Cape towns would pay more for less coverage – why should we have to do that? There are reasons besides unions why towns aren’t lining up for GIC, esp. outside metro west.
So you could get rid of the 70% rule and those towns will still not opt into the GIC. This is a strawman.
Paddynoons. part of the discussion is the blame that has accrued to unions for commmunities not going to the GIC. Mr. Porcupine’s point is to the point.
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p>In negotiations, the party saying no can be either side, and both sides can agree not to negoatiate…and they can also agree on a deal. Blaming one side, especially when facts do not bear it out, is below BMG standards.
I just don’t see any good argument against a municipality reducing teachers’ salaries $1000 a year if doing so will save the municipality money. Will it mean less generous wages in all cases? Let’s stipulate that the answer is yes. But — and this is the important point — will it mean inadequate wages in any cases? I think the answer to that is clearly no.
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p>
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p>What’s the difference?
I mean, it’s a crisis, right? So why not an across-the-board paycut that probably saves a few jobs.
Why does stomv hate teachers?
let’s get rid of collective bargaining and cut the pay of public employees?
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p>Mb
David, did you forget that you’re the editor to BLUE mass group? Haven’t we cut enough? It’s time to start raising revenue. We need that to get out of this recession and these tough times; constantly cutting hasn’t got this country very far, has it?
I’m insured by Health New England. I don’t have any problems other insured people don’t have.
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p>About getting rid of the 70% rule, you wrote:
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p>Seriously, it makes total sense, doesn’t it? GIC can provide quality health insurance for less. Municipalities need a break, especially in light of hideous cuts in local aid that appear to be on the horizon. If anyone’s got a compelling argument against changing the 70% buy-in rule, I’d love to hear it.
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p>I apologize if I’m reading more into your words here. You stated that you were a little unclear as to why more cities and towns hadn’t chosen the GIC. Fair enough.
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p>You’ve now heard compelling arguments:
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p>
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p>The quality of the benefits is a side issue as far as I’m concerned.
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p>Mark
impulses at least are masked with ‘benign intentions,’ and you are willing to determine for others what is “adequate” for them. Honestly, David, sometimes you scare me.
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p>Let’s assume that community A has 50-50%(employer first, employee second) health insurance plans with a BC/BS HMO with a price tag of $12,000 and a PPO with a price tag of $19,000. Huge numbers of communities have 50-50 splits.
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p>The copayments are higher at the GIC, and there are deductibles for things like hospitalization. IOW, the plans’ designs are “lower.” The state designed these plans, for sure, but the state workers contribute either 85-15% or 80-20% if they are new. DiMasi wants to allow the community to force employees into the GIC at the 50-50% split. In other words, he wants the employees to lose in the exchange. And people can’;t understand why unions are…well, pissed?
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p>And so do you want the employees to lose.
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p>What the 70% buy-in requires is that the move to different, and in many cases inferior insurance designs is a win-win. So, be honest; you want a win-lose, as long as it’s the employees who lose. If negotiations means delay, that’s what “due diligence” is all about; so start early and talk to the unions a great deal. Transparency is the key.
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p>We tried twice in Quincy to go to the GIC. The first time, the mayor wanted it quick and he wanted it his way. He wanted the unions to bully our own memberships into voting for insurance essentially blindly (because they trust us).
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p>The second time, we started 10 months early with a different mayor, first tried bidding out to see if BC/BS could beat the GIC. They could not. Then we shared info, each hired consultants (municipalities already have them), tossed ideas around freely, and finally settled, on time, with a 75% union vote for a deal in which the $6 million in savings was split with just over $5 million for the City and just under a million for the employees, with an adjustment in the premium split, too.
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p>Damn it, it was a win-win. Not easy. Not fast. But good. Of course, our colleagues in police uniforms are still angry we didn’t get more.
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p>What “makes you anti-union” is that you would force the workers; the union movement is based on the premise that employee and employer approach each other as equals. You want us to be inferiors. That will not happen to us willingly.
Good Unions create strength through collective action to counter oppression and exploitation and bring fairness and balance to the employer-employee process.
Bad Unions get power hungry and greedy and demand unreasonable wages and benefits for lax quality labor.
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p>I hear about Good Unions mainly in a historical context, and in occasional Good Fights that still go on today like my old local town newspaper workers trying to unionize and stand up to the local town mini-rupert-murdoch who’d bought the paper and started spinning it right.
I hear about longshoremen making what sound to me incredibly high wages. I hear about the UAW in what sometimes sound like petty squabbles with the Big Three while their entire industry goes to crap. And this may be part of the vast right wing conspiracy, but I still hear a lot about teachers unions defending ‘underperforming teachers’.
Maybe the answer to that last point is simply a PR campaign to set the record straight, but it needs doing. Maybe the answer is to make sure teachers are given the resources they need, and there should be a public campaign around that. Alternately and possibly additionally, if there is a grain of truth to failed-teacher stories, and I suspect even if it’s not epidemic there is a grain of truth in there somewhere, I want teachers unions to take some pride in their craft and be self-policing and self-regulating and make sure there aren’t any such failures in their ranks.
I want the UAW to demand that management change course and make cars of the future instead of the same old dinosaurs. If they want to do right for the workers they need to make sure the industry survives.
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p>Of course, this is just my view from the peanut gallery, I could be wrong.
While I am not prone to use the dripping sarcasm of a post upstream I will support these statements,
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p>It has been impassable to get the local teachers union to consider any changes. The rigidity of some union leadership to refuse exploring an avenue that may in fact provide better benefits (and sweet deals like the one above) and a longer term strategy for the sustainability/survival of the municipality is unacceptable. Hence, the anger and spite for the union leadership.
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p>Solidarity is fabulous and since we’re all in this together how about the unions taking the initiative to come to the table to bargain the GIC vs. the current stance of resistance?
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p>For a look at some other perspectives Charlie Baker has some thoughts on the Swampscott decision to stay with MIIA but you must read to the end.
He’s the guy that said over 10 years ago “Ann people won’t support far-reaching reforms like the ones you want (social insurance where the risk pool is MUCH bigger) because it’s not bad enough yet. Things just aren’t bad enough.”
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p>From what I saw it’s been “bad enough” for a long long time. We’re all getting ripped off by sky-high costs. The human costs are an unspeakable disgrace on our nation. My first job as a nurse at Mass. General’s Oncology unit we had young people come in with late-stage cancers b/c they didn’t have insurance and did what most of us would do (hoped the symptoms would go away, but they didn’t), and working as a home care nurse I’ve cared for too many people who were paralyzed due to stroke, or on life-long dialysis r/t untreated high blood pressure (security job didn’t offer affordable insurance, retail job didn’t provide insurance or the insurance deductibles were too high to pay the rent, too, etc etc). Isn’t it “bad enough” when my patient’s foot was amputated due to undiagnosed and untreated diabetes that caused gangrene (his janitor job didn’t offer affordable insurance). How friggin bad does it have to get, then?!
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p>Why GIC and why not MassHealth as an option for anyone/everyone in MA? Why not improved Medicare-for-All from cradle to grave for the entire country?!! Why not cut out (most of) the middleman insurance industry and their profits? They don’t add any value to healthcare but they sure add a lot of hassle a lot of barriers to people’s access to timely, appropriate, affordable care.
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p>What’s with the American people that causes us to tolerate this deplorable and disgraceful situation? GIC is mere tinkering.
My direction in the post was to encourage reading the Comments to the Baker post. I admire your idealism and vision but the facts remain that as bad as it is and, yes, you are right it is “bad enough”, social/political change rarely happens until things are “bad enough” for the masses.
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p>Health care in the US of A is like the cliche frog in the pot. Put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. Put a frog in a pot of water and slowly bring it to a boil and it will cook. We’re cooked and everyone is culpable.
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p>I hope BMG readers who believe themselves not to be frogs will read “Enough Tinkering”, it’s very informative!
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p>
Hmm… Charlie Baker advocating towns not employ GIC? Wonder why he’d do that?
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p>The fact is Swampscott DID just switch to GIC and, even though last year’s insurance didn’t go up at all, we’ll still save around $650,000 this year. Insurance would have gone up for the town by a lot this year because it was timed so that the new rate for the HMOs via the town were going to come in after the GIC deadline. Thus, there was suddenly no competition. Though, I will fully agree that the GIC potential was a big reason why insurance didn’t go up last year. Moot point, though, since going GIC saved huge dollars anyway.
My point was to read to the end of the Baker post where the comments support the position you stated above.
Unions that have fought for control and power don’t want to let go of it. If they have a say in their healthcare plan why would they want to give up that control? Will they get paid more if a city saves a few bucks? Likely not.
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p>Liberals, I like to believe, want to see good policy enacted. If a group, even a “good” group, stands in the way of that policy for less-than-pure reasons, it turns us off.
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p>So yes, as much good as unions have done and continue to do for the rights of workers, they still manage to gum up the works with unreasonable, inflexible demands from time to time, and that gets people (even liberals) annoyed.
“Liberals, I like to believe, want to see good policy enacted. If a group, even a “good” group, stands in the way of that policy for less-than-pure reasons, it turns us off.”
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p>Is the policy “good” because liberals like it? And if Charlie Baker likes it, is the policy liberal? Who elected “liberals” to decide “good”?
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p>Beyond all the collective bargaining arguments, do not overlook the fact that unions are legally obligated to fight for the rights of their members to bargain for wages, hours, and conditions of employment. They cannot sit back and say, “This policy is ‘good’ because the liberals like it and roll over and play dead while their members lose important rights. They may not win this fight, but they have an obligation to make it a fight.
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p>Also, there is no need, to disparage the proponent of this approach as ethically challenged. To do so is to engage in the same kind of thoughtless bashing that he accuses others of doing to unions.
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p>The speaker has put through minimum wage increases, the state version of card-check legislation, and a host of other progressive measures. We can agree to disagree on this issue and remain civil.
I think we can keep this debate civil. While we may not see eye to eye on everything, we’re all on the same team.
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p>I think part of what qualifies someone as “liberal” is the belief that the institutions and structures of society can be improved to support the greater good. In short, we can improve society to make things better. In this process, we can and should have a vigorous debate about what the greater good is and should be. But that should be the terms of the debate. Some on this board have discussed problems with the GIC, and that advances a considered analysis of these questions. But what concerns me (and it’s not just your post) is the dismissiveness of this inquiry as some sort of liberal conspiracy.
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p>
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p>This rhetoric gets very close to the anti-intellectual discourse of right-wingers who are dismissive of “liberal elites” who “tell you how to live your life and run your business.” This attitude calls into question the very notion that we can collective improve our society through public action. It also dismisses expert analysis of social problems that is essential to this project.
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p>Now, many “liberal elites” like David have used “the math” to determine that money can be saved by having municipal workers join the GIC. You can rebut premise this a number of ways: that money will actually be saved, or that the GIC is comparable to muni plans. But I find it utterly unconvincing that because a certain group has power they can act in their own narrow self-interest and that should be the end of the inquiry.
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p>For example, take what you just wrote and swap GIC for pharma reform and unions for drug companies. Would we honestly defend the status quo in this area just because it advantages one group? Drug companies are “legally obligated” to fight for the interests of their shareholders; they will not “roll over and play dead while their shareholders and executives lose money; they may not win this fight, but they have an obligation to make it a fight.” Now, of course, unions and drug companies can fight for their self interest, even if it is detrimental to society as a whole. But it’s a far cry from that to actively defending their behavior as somehow in furtherance of the greater good.
“This rhetoric gets very close to the anti-intellectual discourse of right-wingers who are dismissive of “liberal elites” who “tell you how to live your life and run your business.” This attitude calls into question the very notion that we can collective improve our society through public action. It also dismisses expert analysis of social problems that is essential to this project.”
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p>So are we anti-intellectual when we dismiss right winge elites who want to tell us how to live our lives? I don’t think so.
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p>Unions take collective action every day to improve the lives of their members. Stripping them of that right because a specific policy might be helpful in the short term to save a few bucks is not improving our society through collective action, it is expediency of the highest order. Expediency may be neccessary, but wrapping in the patina of “liberalism” and “good policy” does a disservice.
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p>True collective action to improve our society is about empowering people, not the implementation of expedient policies. We empower people to collectively bargain for decent wages, hours, and conditions of employment. If we are going to engage in class warfare and strip them of that power to negotiate on healthcare, it should be because we have taken a truly collective action to improve society by embracing a universal healthcare solution.
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p>
I understand your point to be that the gains from porting towns to mandatory GIC coverage isn’t worth the damage to the principle of collective bargaining. And I agree there’s a very valid concern there, although I think it’s more a slippery slope issue than an immediate one. Yes, muni unions would no longer be able to bargain about the co-pay for prescription eyeglasses, and I acknowledge this would be a trade off between efficiency and autonomy. I just don’t think it’s firing the Air Traffic Controllers, the sequel.
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p>As to your latter point, one dirty little secret of a larger GIC is that it would not only be able to bargain more effectively and efficiently but also that its pool would be large enough to influence health policy. This may not be immediate single payer, but you could see it growing over time — fold in Mass Health, maybe allow private buy-in — to be a influential actor in contracting with the insurers. If you support the single-payer concept, you should support the idea of creating one pool for state-paid insurance.
Is the policy “good” because liberals like it?
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p>Uh, of course it is. That should be unsurprising.
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p>Do you think liberals are any different from anyone else in this regard? Do conservatives like policies they think are bad?
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p>Further, most ideological differences come down to differences in moral calculation. It’s that simple. So, yes, generally conservatives think liberals are somewhat immoral in their policy preference and liberals think conservatives are somewhat immoral in theirs. With differences over moral calculation comes charged language. We can try to be nice about it. Sometimes “nice” comes at the expense of “clear”.
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p>Let’s not fret too much about this.
Actually, I think the bias among most liberals is unreasonably pro-union, to the point that they are willing to look past self-serving union behavior in favor of notions of the positive historical role of unions.
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p>Be that as it may, the broader picture here is that on the state level, unions (as well as everyone else) WILL have to sacrifice some health benefits, mainly by accepting higher co-pays and deductibles. Until the main problem of health care costs is controlled (ultimately requiring federal intervention), this is inevitable. However, I get the sense that here in MA as well as elsewhere, some unions will fight tooth and nail against an inevitability instead of working consensually.
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p>Rather than taking the MTA’s statements at face-value, I would also consider questions like why the North Adams union is pushing for GIC discussion (likely more to do with forcing broader negotiations on other issues, rather than a public-spirited effort to help cut costs for everybody) and why other communities were able to eventually join the GIC (possibly because they acceded to other strong union demands on wages, etc.).
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p>Look, the MTA has its bargaining position and it has to fight for it. No problem there; makes sense. But reality-based means that if power is being abused for self-interest we call it out, whether it is employers or unions.
with calling it out. That’s politics. We’re supposed to challenge the self-interest of others.
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p>And I’m not taking the MTA at face value, though it refers to an actual report by a third party. My personal observations in my neck of the woods reveal no negotiations or votes on GIC. The Globe never even interviewed an MTA representative. The only source I could find was on the MTA site. Some diligence was due.
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p>Of course, there are anecdotal examples of GIC negotiations. North Adams. Stoneham. But there are also 351 municipalities in the Commonwealth, and a similar, though probably lower, number of school districts. Hasty generalizations aren’t a good basis for changing a law and violating existing contracts.
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p>Mark
The upcoming crisis with healthcare will generate more union discontent that support..
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p>Right now, we have 47-odd million people that need insurance.. but they don’t need insurance in and of itself – they need to see doctors, use hospital beds, get drugs, etc. Our system today can’t handle that volume – there aren’t enough doctors, hospitals, etc. You know why? It isn’t strictly that we deny the poor – its more because we give too much to the rich, and we’ll have to dial them back to make this work.
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p>So a teacher with a gold plated health care plan is going to have to pay more, wait longer, and face some limits on healthcare so that a single mom working at a laundromat can have some healthcare.
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p>I’d love to see progressives take that case to their union compatriots..
“Be that as it may, the broader picture here is that on the state level, unions (as well as everyone else) WILL have to sacrifice some health benefits, mainly by accepting higher co-pays and deductibles. Until the main problem of health care costs is controlled (ultimately requiring federal intervention), this is inevitable. However, I get the sense that here in MA as well as elsewhere, some unions will fight tooth and nail against an inevitability instead of working consensually.”
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p>Job one is to convince the unions of the necessity of change and their interest in accommodation. This is the part that many liberals skip. “It must be a good idea because I am convinced it’s a good idea.” This is frequently followed by the idea that it’s OK to force others to accept the change you seek. If they disagree…or, heaven forfend, want to TALK about it, they are “obstructions”.
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p>So let’s get down to it. The union basic is that employees and employers are equals; and that you reach CONTRACTS, that are signed by each side. (the long discussion above about UAW contracts, blaming the UAW, implicitly argues that managements of auto companies are a bunch of stupid, intimidatable wusses…and then sides with them!)
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p>And so unions are saying “if you want the GIC, we demand that you talk to us first.” This is EXACTLY the same as management insisting that,if we want raises we talk to them first. It’s respect (cue the Areha Franklin>.
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p>What has occasionally bothered me is the obvious lack of respect for workers, and the kneejerk defense of management. If the GIC is such a good idea, it will be obvious to all. But that takes work and communication. It’s so much easier to have the elites tell us what’s good for us…Sorry for the sarcasm.
But you should check out the goofiness we have in North Adams where ALL the Unions want to join the GIC and move from the current 70/30 split to the 85/15.
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p>Our old-school Democratic mayor went apoplectic over this, and not only disputes the savings, but has managed to get unfair labor practice charges filed against him by interfering with the bargaining process. If the newspaper reports are correct, he ejected the MTA rep from city hall while screaming that “you are the worst thing to happen to this city in years.”
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p>Odd. Very odd.
Thanks David for just highlighting your comments in the promotion, not kneecapping the article by dumping your reaction before the poster made his/her own argument.
… is that they are a natural consequence of our system. There is no structural advocate for labor’s interests other than unions. If they don’t have any other outlet to get their interests to the table, you better brace for unions because they are inevitable. Furthermore, the lack of any other structural component to corporate (or civil) governance to advocate for labor interests, the union/management relationship is doomed to be adversarial, often times in the least productive way. Management looks at numbers and bemoans that the union terms are killing them. They may be right or wrong, but it’s hardly surprising that union’s wouldn’t just take management’s word for it. Look at the ‘retention’ costs at AIG… they were supposed to not pay bonuses, but there they are. Is it really so difficult to imagine a union cost concession going the same way?
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p>The truth is that I find the whole thing to be tragic. I agree with David that things are tough all over. I don’t doubt that union contract can cause problems. I also don’t have much hope that labor and management can work well together as long as the relationship is so adversarial, but that’s not likely to change anytime soon. Maybe after we get universal health care and the outdated memes about ‘socialized medicine’ are debunked by action, we can look at putting labor on the board like they do in Germany. If they can be in a position of codetermination, it’d be easier to sell them on management’s problems.
The National Education Association is a political animal. It spends its membership dues money on political issues. (read: buying Representative and Senatorial votes!)
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p>The Longshoreman’s Union, the General Dynamics Unions, and the Teamsters Union are all controlled by thugs with names that rhyme with some form of pasta. They spend much of their membership dues money on large salaries for themselves and the guys they hire to break the knees of people they dislike. Then they spend the rest of it on political issues (see above).
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p>Unions were ostensibly formed to bargain collectively with employers, on behalf of their members. That is what they should do. That is what they should limit themselves to doing.
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p>When that happens I will become an advocate for unions. I’m not holding my breath.
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p>Best,
Chuck
His diary from March
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p>I let the gentle reader fill in the blank: His comments on Hillary Clinton were deleted twice. What does that tell you about him?
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p>I suppose we can look forward to this guy lowering the level of discourse again.
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p>The pasta comment sounds like it’s par for the course.
“The National Education Association is a political animal.”
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p>So is the Catholic Church.
So is the United Way.
So is General Motors.
So is…er WAS Bear Stearns.
So is everybody.
When politics gets out of public education, the NEA, and the MTA, and local teacher unions will get out of politics.