UE-GE CONFERENCE BOARD VOTES TO RECOMMEND TENTATIVE GE AGREEMENT
june 23, 2015
NEW YORK CITY
The UE-GE Conference Board voted today to recommend to the membership the Tentative Agreement which was hammered out at the CBC small bargaining table on Sunday night. The CBC was represented at the small table by UE, IUE-CWA, UAW, IAM, and IBEW.
Tentative Agreement Has Solid Gains and Protections
Most importantly, UE and others unions successfully resisted GE’s attempt to eliminate company subsidies for post-65 health care. All UE members will continue to retire with post-65 health care subsidies.
UE and the other unions also secured an important guarantee from GE that it will not attempt to freeze the pension during the term of this contract and the next contact. Our pension benefits will continue to accumulate with substantial improvements and are secure and free from GE attacks to freeze such benefits until at least 2023.
Wage, COLA, and lump sum bonuses will result in pay increases of more than $15,000 for every UE represented GE employee in the U.S., if ratified by his/her Local union. Health Insurance contributions are frozen until January 1, 2017 and even after 2017-2019 increases go into effect, all members will realize more than a $12,000 increase in total compensation.
Retiree life insurance which GE also threatened to eliminate will continue for all members who retire under the contract, but starting in 2016 will be reduced to $15,000 per retiree.
Pension improvements are impressive and contain a pension update which will increase average pensions for members who retire under this contract by more than $5,000 per year. Guaranteed minimum pensions, career earnings tables, and early retirement supplements are also increased. For the first time in almost three decades disability pensions have been improved.
GE has also committed to a new health processing system under which only one health care card is needed and claims processing can be done directly through medical providers without using computers, telephones, and faxes. In major locations like Erie, GE will provide a health care advocate to help process any difficult claims. The new system will start January 1, 2016 and by mid year UE and GE will meet to review the changes to make sure that claims are processing smoothly. If not, changes will be made quickly.
Commenting on the tentative settlement UE General President Bruce Klipple said: “We protected post-65 health care, stopped pensions from being frozen until 2023, and made sure that all members receive much more in increased pay than the new health care contributions.” He continued, “ I urge all members to vote for this settlement even though we didn’t get everything we wanted.”
Under the terms of this settlement, each UE-GE local union must vote to ratify the agreement by July 3 so that its local members receive the $2,000 Ratification Bonus next month.