The Southern California UFCW just ratified its contracts with the 4 major Grocery Chains. Alot of changes with the Medical Insurance,we now have too start paying weekly co-payments of $15.00 a week for the Faimly. As far as I know we are the first Union Grocery workers to have to start paying. How do you feel this will affect the rest of the Country?
Healthcare is a huge expense for business and thanks to this affordable health care act its going to get worse. Currently for a family of 4 with $3K deduct per individual I pay nearly $1900 monthly. And since my plan does not have dental and a few other add ons it will be going away in December as it is no longer a qualified plan. Scares the sirloin out of me what how affordable it will become in December. My brother who is in management has been paying 50% of his healthcare for years now. I expect we will see many Americans paying more of what it costs the employer to cover them, or in the case of many smaller employers and even some larger ones we will see this benefit go away. Like anything as soon as the government pokes their nose in some business what they charge goes up.
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I'm not a vegetarian, but have eaten many animals that were.
wow...im paying over 400.00 month just for me on a high deductable,,and 250 month for my son in college-cheapest rates i can find..
as rj said he's paying almost 2k per month for his family
consider yourself VERY lucky,,and dont you dare complain about it!!
i worked for a warehouse 17 yrs, that had the ufcw union in the distribution center,,,they paid nothing,,,but the non union employees like myself was paying more and more,,,i was essentially paying for their free health benefits..
the union kept asking for more and more thru the years-just the nature of unions..
eventually the warehouse shut down and we all lost our jobs
Currently I pay $150/month just for me but I am no longer in the retail meat business.My employer pays the rest. My wife is still in the UFCW as a part timer and her benefits cover the entire family at no cost to us but the reason I buy my own coverage is that my job moved 600 miles from where my wife and daughter live and none of the doctors in her network were in the mid-west where I now work.
When I WAS in the retail meat biz I was in the AMCBW (Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America and Canada) which later was absorbed by the UFCW.
In both cases the benefits were excellent but remember I left in 1994 or 1995. No co-pays except for $1.00 for prescriptions back then. When I asked my union officials why we could not seem to get wage increases greater than 2% each contract they told me they felt it was better to keep or improve the benefits which were not taxable. I agree considering the position they were in but overall the total compensation as a meatcutter was so much less than what was available for other trades that I left anyway.
Its 15 a week for me and the Old Lady. Come March it will likely go up quite a bit. I will most likely get no hourly pay increase. The corporate culture is killing the hourly wage worker.
you guys got it good... for the last 20 years,,,health benefits have skyrocketed up in the northeast
Up until 2002 I lived in the greater Danbury area of Ct. I did pay 15 a week for me anf =d the wife, but it included 5 dollar visits and 5 dollar scripts. Not shabby for a non union small chain.
I don't want to offend anyone but seriously $10,$15, $20 a week copay is a joke for such a great benefit, the true cost is what everyone really needs to see. I'm nearly $400 a week. Take that out of your paychecks for a couple months and I think you will understand where we are coming from. Not sure how your paystubs show benefits but when I was in the Air Force at the end of the year it showed the value of all benefits received. That was a real eye opener! I don't mean to be on a soap box or preaching, this healthcare issue has me totally upset as my premium went UP OVER $500 a month after the affordable healthcare act went into action. Sure they say a lot of Americans are eligible for subsidy, but do you know who pays that? We all do, the money does not just fall of trees for it. Plus you must qualify. And to qualify every penny of income from EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE is counted, not just the breadwinner. This means if husband brings home $40K, wife brings home $30K and two students each make $6K you have a household income of $82K, which I have been told is over the limit for any funds to help defray this $1.9K monthly or $22.8K annual bill on a plan not deemed good enough by the munchkins living in never never land DC.
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I'm not a vegetarian, but have eaten many animals that were.
I don't want to offend anyone but seriously $10,$15, $20 a week copay is a joke for such a great benefit, the true cost is what everyone really needs to see. I'm nearly $400 a week. Take that out of your paychecks for a couple months and I think you will understand where we are coming from. Not sure how your paystubs show benefits but when I was in the Air Force at the end of the year it showed the value of all benefits received. That was a real eye opener! I don't mean to be on a soap box or preaching, this healthcare issue has me totally upset as my premium went UP OVER $500 a month after the affordable healthcare act went into action. Sure they say a lot of Americans are eligible for subsidy, but do you know who pays that? We all do, the money does not just fall of trees for it. Plus you must qualify. And to qualify every penny of income from EVERYONE IN THE HOUSE is counted, not just the breadwinner. This means if husband brings home $40K, wife brings home $30K and two students each make $6K you have a household income of $82K, which I have been told is over the limit for any funds to help defray this $1.9K monthly or $22.8K annual bill on a plan not deemed good enough by the munchkins living in never never land DC.
All I can say is thank those who voted for Obama, the takers can be provided for by the makers.
We've been paying a copay forever here in the northeast. My company shifted the burden of deciding what kind of benefit we receive to the union while still paying the premiums. In return we have a $4,000 pp deductible. $30 copays for every doctor except a general practitioner, $100 emergency room visits, etc. We have been getting nickled and dimed to death. Any miniscule raise we get is more than wiped out by new fees and copays. 22
