United Steelworkers Comments regarding Retiree Health Benefits

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USW

Joint Group Communication
08/22/06

Negotiations Update

The joint group met in negotiations on the 17th of august 2006. This is a summary of what happened.

We discussed the Union’s proposal on creating jobs. Specifically, the union has proposed language to make all skills now facilitator jobs permanent, some currently are not. The discussions took place around jurisdiction of the job and potential problems with making the jobs permanent. No agreement was made.

We discussed and came to a tentative agreement on the company’s proposal on Alcohol and Drug Policy. The proposal is similar to the current alcohol and drug policy with one major difference; the blood alcohol limit was changed to .04. The company withdrew its earlier language for post accident testing.

The one other topic that was discussed was retiree health. Please read below.

What’s up with Retire Health Care?

Every time we have attempted to bargain retiree health care, the company has refused. You need to understand why? And before we start, ask yourself this question...Do I trust my retiree health to a company promise?

Let’s start this off with a statement of fact: your retiree health care is not secure without an agreement that makes it secure!

The reason the company has refused to bargain is very simple to understand even though it is a very complex issue. The issue of current retiree health is a permissive subject of bargaining. Permissive subjects are subjects that either party can refuse to negotiate. So it's true that legally the company can refuse to bargain the subject. But why would they do that when they have offered us proposals on retiree health but have refused to put the money in a trust or give it to us (The United Steelworkers) to manage. The truth is, by keeping the money for them, any time the company needs some extra cash, lets say to pay for some bug bonuses to upper management, they can go the the retirees and increase their premiums or otherwise change or modify their benefits. That's right...By making a promise and not really giving us the benefit, they are really promising that they will take away our health care when we need it most. And would they do that? Of course they would and they already have to current retirees!

And to make matters worse, once the company takes away your benefits once you retiree, they now have high priced lawyers to make sure that you don't get your benefits back. And by law, you don't have the Union or an arbitrator to get your rights back for you. So you see, it is the ultimate lie. The company says, "we promise to give the retirees this benefit" but really mean, "we don't value our retirees enough to put their retirement security in front of corporate profits." When finally backed into a corner and pressed for the truth Bill Smith actually said, "we do not want to guarantee those benefits." At least they are finally honest about it.

So now you can probably see why Bill Smith (head negotiator for the company) thought our slogan of Stora Enso vs. United Steelworkers and Corporate Greed vs. Community Needs was aimed at them. Do you think Stora Enso is greedy?

We have scheduled September 6th, 2006 as our next negotiations.