Why did unionized workers allow the Reagan administration to declare a class war on them?
Unfortunately, the UAW caved.
This is bad:
The creation of a voluntary employees' beneficiary association, or VEBA, that Gettelfinger said will cover retiree health care benefits for the next 80 years.
GM agreed to fund the VEBA near 70 cents on the dollar, sources said. That's significantly more then the 65 cent contribution the company originally pushed for.
*GM will implement a two-tier wage system for workers not doing core manufacturing jobs. The lower tier will be as little as half the current $28-an-hour wage for an hourly worker. The new wage structure would apply to new hires, not current workers.
*The automaker will make 4,100 temporary workers permanent employees paid at the lower rate. A special attrition program offering workers buyouts or early retirement would help clear out senior workers and make room for the new workers.
*Also part of a deal is a trade-off in which workers will give up cost-of-living adjustments in exchange for no increases in medical premiums.
*The agreement would include modifications to the controversial jobs bank program in which laid-off workers receive pay and benefits. The changes will expand the geographic area in which workers would be required to take a new job if one is available. Under current rules, workers are allowed to remain off the job and in the bank unless there's an opening within 50 miles of their old job.
*Signing bonuses, meanwhile, could help win ratification of a contract. The payments would be $3,000 to start, followed by three years of lump-sum payments equal to 3 percent, 4 percent, and 3 percent of their annual pay in the last three years of the contract.
The two-tiered wage structure is in fact a disaster, regardless of the mention the jobs affected are not "core" jobs. The union should have NEVER agreed to this.
Give the corporations an inch, and they'll take a mile.
