The union designated GM as the lead company in its bargaining with Detroit\'s "Big Three" automakers. The firms want to shift their health care costs and administration from themselves to the union, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and stock to a trust fund to pay for present and future benefits. Ford, GM and Chrysler would then wash their hands of health care.

The UAW is reportedly considering GM\'s proposal, but former UAW regional directors/board members and a growing number of rank-and-file UAW members strongly oppose it and vow to defeat any contract that includes it. UAW is bargaining with GM over what would be a "pattern" contract then extended to Ford and Chrysler.

A new 4-year contract with GM would replace the old pact, which covered 340,000 active workers and retirees--and now retirees are in the majority. The old pact expired Sept. 14, and talks have been extended hour by hour.

The companies first floated the health plan shift to what\'s called a Voluntary Employee Benefits Association in July in the run-up to bargaining. They pointed to successful VEBAs bargained elsewhere, and claimed that a projected $95 billion combined in health care costs, especially for retirees, makes them uncompetitive with foreign automakers.

But they also don\'t have the full $95 billion available for the VEBA. GM, news reports said, wants to cover only 60 percent of its projected VEBA cost of $50 billion.

The conflict over the VEBA, which has been percolating for months, surfaced in an open letter from the three former UAW board members--including a contemporary of legendary union President Walter Reuther--to present President Ronald Gettelfinger and other UAW bargainers.

The VEBA proposal, if it\'s in the new contract, "would represent a radical shift in the traditions of our union," wrote former UAW Regional Directors and board members Paul Schrade, Warren Davis and Jerry Tucker. Schrade served with Reuther.

"Knowingly placing members at risk under such a plan, whether active or retired, is contrary to the mandate of the UAW Constitution and its ‘Objects,\'" they added. "It would undo decades of hard-won health care benefit protections, paid for in large part by wage diversions, past concessions, and increased worker productivity.

"It is also disturbing that a major change of this significance and impact has not been the subject of extensive discussion and debate within the union. The corporate-proposed VEBA...is only now being revealed to the membership and much of the local union leadership by media reports, and sketchy ones at that.

"Yet potential consequences of adopting such a plan will be economically painful, if not disastrous, to those covered by it. A number of factors could adversely affect its viability. Secrecy and uninformed members on this question can only further damage the shared principles we were founded to defend and advance as a union," they said.

Schrade, Davis and Tucker urged Gettelfinger and the bargainers to reject the VEBA and hold GM to its promise in a side attachment to the last contract: To lead the corporate campaign for universal single-payer government-run health care. They pointed out that veteran Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., whose district includes thousands of Auto Workers, has introduced such legislation in Congress.

And they noted GM has recently cited its lower costs in Ontario production, due to single-payer Canadian government-run health care, compared to costs in Michigan. Passing Conyers\' bill -- which is opposed by the Bush administration -- would lift the health care cost burden from the auto firms, the three said.

Gettelfinger himself, in a Sept. 6 speech to the Economic Club of Detroit, reiterated the UAW\'s support for government-run single-payer health care, which would eliminate the insurance companies, their premiums, co-pays, profits, and denial of benefits and doctors.

The UAW dissent over health care goes beyond the three former leaders. The dissidents\' website, www.futureoftheunion.com,  labeled VEBA as "Vandalizing Employee Benefits Again."

This article was written by Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.