GM and Chrysler retirees will get some of their health care cuts restored in 2012.
Though they were largely left out when General Motors and the United Auto Workers Union hammered out a new 4-year contract last week it looks like retirees at GM – as well as Chrysler – may have something to cheer about after all.
They will see a restoration of some of the medical benefits they lost as part of earlier concessions made to help the two automakers survive their 2009 bankruptcies, according to a posting made by a UAW union local on its Facebook page.
GM and Chrysler retirees have had to pay for their own vision and dental care for the last two years but will now get at least some of that coverage restored, according to the letter from the director of care and benefit management for the so-called VEBA program established jointly by the UAW and the makers to take over retiree health care.
The additional coverage appears limited, however, the restored vision care allowing for exams every other year.
The news does not impact Ford retirees who did not lose any of their health care in 2009. Ford was the only one of Detroit’s Big Three makers not to go into bankruptcy and then emerge with the help of a federal bailout.
The news media have been filled with the frustrated complaints of retired GM and Chrysler hourly workers since the former maker reached agreement with the UAW last week. Union officials said they recognized they could not win any improvements for retirees so focused on gains for active workers – among other things getting $5,000 signing bonuses and improved profit-sharing.
“I, for one, am very upset over the new contract,” wrote a GM retiree who regularly comments on TheDetroitBureau.com under the online name pmorris1. “Active workers (are) making good money already,” he said, asking why the union could not “come up with something to make life a little easier for GM people living on a fixed income?”
The VEBA, formally known as the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, took control of former workers’ health care in 2010. The program, funded by the Detroit automakers, was designed to get costly retiree medical care off the companies’ books and to give the unions more active participation in health care in the hopes of maintaining coverage while lowering costs. The program currently owns a major stake in the carmakers as a result of the 2009 bankruptcy. The VEBA is also seriously underfunded though GM has indicated it is studying ways to pump in billions more in the near future.