and why do co's provide these benefits? out of their
concern for employees? do you think they would
provide these benefits if they wer not forced to?
thanx to unions and collective bargining power.(over the
last 200 years)....they must to be compettitive...
The reason my company provides these benefits has nothing to do with
unions and everything to do with competition for good employees. Now
if you want to credit the unions for what we provide our employees
then God bless you. You have that right. But I can tell you flat out
unions don't enter into the calculation. Not for us anyway.
I find it interesting that you credit unions with being competitive.
Do you think United Airlines pilot unions were thinking about being
competitive when they forced UAL into the 1999/2000 contract that made
them the highest paid in the entire industry? That's not competition
it's extortion and it backfired big time. 3 years in bankruptcy.
Pensions that are now worthless and massive pay cuts. The flying
public doesn't quite support what United was trying to implement.
In ten years or so none of this will matter. Companies (Including GM)
are moving slowly away from being the health care provider or their
employees. Over time this will put so much pressure on the federal
government that the USA will finally fall to socialized medicine.
Although I think this will be great for those who are denied health
care in this country it will also mean we start waiting in line like
Canadians for low tech health care. My neighbor is a surgeon from
Toronto and he says we have more MRI machines in our small pocket
outside Denver than the whole of Ontario. Americans with health care
don't wait for high tech procedures. We're spoiled in that regard.
However, I do think having 45 million uninsured is unacceptable. I
hope the USA will combine what's right with the Canadian system and
what's right with our current system and create something of a mix.
Otherwise we won't like it. Side note: we provide health care
insurance for our Canadian employees (even though Canada provides
health care) just to bring them up to USA equivalents. i.e. drugs,
dental, optical, etc.