GM's solution is part of the problem
David Lazarus
LATimes
Chickens, meet roost.
The decision Monday by the United Auto Workers to walk off the job at General Motors highlights yet again the divisive element of healthcare in labor relations, and how what began as a historic accident is now the single biggest liability for both businesses and workers.
It also clouds prospects for healthcare reform nationwide as GM, the largest private-sector purchaser of health insurance, signals that it's more concerned about a short-term covering of its you-know-what than a leadership role in seeking long-term solutions to the problem.
"The present employer-based system is in terrible trouble," said Henry Simmons, president of the National Coalition on Healthcare, a group of business, labor and other organizations that collectively represents about 150 million Americans. "Business has a critical role to play in fixing that."
Some 73,000 UAW members hit the picket lines Monday as the union responded to what it called an impasse over job security for its members. Analysts say a prolonged strike could do extensive harm to GM's bottom line.
(Continued here.)
LATimes
Chickens, meet roost.
The decision Monday by the United Auto Workers to walk off the job at General Motors highlights yet again the divisive element of healthcare in labor relations, and how what began as a historic accident is now the single biggest liability for both businesses and workers.
It also clouds prospects for healthcare reform nationwide as GM, the largest private-sector purchaser of health insurance, signals that it's more concerned about a short-term covering of its you-know-what than a leadership role in seeking long-term solutions to the problem.
"The present employer-based system is in terrible trouble," said Henry Simmons, president of the National Coalition on Healthcare, a group of business, labor and other organizations that collectively represents about 150 million Americans. "Business has a critical role to play in fixing that."
Some 73,000 UAW members hit the picket lines Monday as the union responded to what it called an impasse over job security for its members. Analysts say a prolonged strike could do extensive harm to GM's bottom line.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
Discussing the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States -- from the steel, automobile and textile industries to computers and telecommunications, Alan Greenspan wrote in his memior,The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, that it "is a plus, not a minus, to the American standard of living."
That comment is reminiscent of the adage : the only difference between a recession and a depression is who is out of work ( when your neighbor is out of work, it's a recession; when you're out of work it's a depression. )
If Greenspan is correct, then why did Governor Tim Pawlenty go to Michigan to try to dissuade Ford Motor from closing the Saint Paul plant? Why didn't Pawlenty tell us that this would be good for our "standard of living."
Greenspan misses the point that large American corporations of yesterday formed a social contract with their employees ... from health care to pensions.
While foreign countries see health care as a responsibility of government, America allowed the private sector to offer (selectively and optionally) health care benefits as a function of employment ... now, industry no longer wants that financial obligation especially when their foreign operations do not have that obligation, nor their foreign competition.
The GM strike should be a basis for a national discussion on health care -- not on the basis of GM and its workers, but on how our country needs to finally address this issue.
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