GE Saves $3.3 Billion With Cuts to Retirees' Life, Health Benefits

GE Saves $3.3 Billion With Cuts to Retirees' Life, Health Benefits

http://www.thestreet.com/story/13239214/1/ge-saves-33-billion-with-cuts-to-retirees-life-health-benefits.html?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO

So you decided to spend your entire life working for a single company, joined the union, after 30 years you are months away from retiring, and you find out your retirement benefits JUST got cut from the new union contract... so who do you blame, the company you gave 30 years of your life to, or the union you paid dues to for 30 years? who is more or less at fault? the one who employed you, or the one who was supposed to protect you?

how unfair is it for someone who spent all those years and now you just got less than you ever thought you were going to, and with rising healthcare costs, this is a HUGE deal for those retirees... I mean thats going to be your greatest expense throughout your entire retirement... but yeah I was just curious how people felt about this, since clearly not just the company, but unions BOTH had to agree on this, and 51% of the members had to vote on this... so is this an instance where the 49% closer to retirement all rejected this, and the younger 51% voted just to be able to keep their jobs, pitting them against each other...

 

That's because no one in this day and age deserves retirement benefits.

 

It's interesting how the "Affordable Care Act" keeps rearing its ugly head through your article.

Perhaps, the company and the union aren't solely to blame for these cuts (?)...

 

Very disappointing. Let's pass legislation that makes it harder to cut already earned benefits...who's with me?!?

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Then you stop offering them to new hires. You don't take them from people who worked for them.

 

Health Care should be declare as a public service department and government should be responsible to provide health care at an affordable rates.

 

These benefits weren't earned, they were negotiated. But yes, let's pass a few more employee oriented laws and thus make unions totally unnecessary.

 

Isn't the CEO one of Obama's buds? Yep looks like voting for Obama and their union reps really paid off for them. How's that say go.... Oh yea: the chickens are coming home to roost.

 

I bought 100 shares of their stock when it was $7.00 a share in late 2008 or early 2009. It's $25.90 today! From $700 to $2590 in 6 years that's an average of 61% per year, I think it's time to sell and move on. Thanks GE!

 

So was their pay, so they don't earn their paycheck?

 

They earned their paycheck, the amount it contained was negotiated.

 

And so was their benefit package. Companies do this all the time. For instance in negotiations you might sacrifice $5 an hour or more to get those benefits. How is that not the same as negotiating your pay?

You are making no sense here. Of course those benefits were earned just like their paycheck was. Now I can understand them not offering up those same benefits to new hires NOW, but the ones that have it now DID earn it and they DO deserve to get those.

 

How can I not be making sense when everything we're talking about actually happened?

 

They saved even more by avoiding paying taxes.
"The company with the most profits parked overseas is General Electric, according to a new Bloomberg analysis of 83 corporations.

GE said in a Feb. 26 regulatory filing that it was holding $108 billion in profits overseas as of the end of last year. That is up from $102 billion a year before. GE said in the filing that it reinvested most of these profits in foreign business operations and does not intend to bring those profits back to the U.S.

The practice of holding profits overseas has been highlighted as a strategy to avoid paying taxes. GE paid no U.S. taxes at all in 2010, according to The New York Times -- an allegation GE spokesman Seth Martin called "untrue" in an email to The Huffington Post Monday."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/general-electric-taxes_n_2852094.html

 

And they also earned their negotiated benefits.

 

You claim they didn't earn it when in fact they did. Just like their salaries, DUH. What part of that do you NOT understand?

 

They probably couldn't keep their health insurance because it didn't qualify under Obamacare.

As for Life insurance cuts, I don't know. I guess it was just on the chopping block once they had to reorganize their retirement benefits package from the healthcare change.

 

Only to vote them away.

 

thats a pretty good observation actually... I guess we can chalk this up to yet another "unintended consequence" of passing a bill that was never read hey...

but despite that outside influence, which there are many market factors in every negotiation... who's to blame more, GE or the Unions now for accepting this deal... either could have kept fighting and not bent on this... GE will still profit billions... Unions will still profit billions... so who's the only ones getting hurt here...

 

are there any other social programs that are provided "at an affordable rate" in america? or does the government inherently increase costs simply by taking control? I think about other things they do, build roads, provide schools, etc etc... and all these things they provide, cost more than if done by a private organization, so how would making government responsible, solve the problem or make it less expensive? I know people argue it would be less expensive, but I can't really think of any government examples where they make things cheaper after taking them over... can you?

 

Read my post again. I said they earned their paycheck but the amount they earned was negotiated.

 

I wouldn't say it was one of his "buds"... it was his JOB CZAR... the VERY guy who was supposed to advise and develop jobs in america...

http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/article/Jeffrey-Immelt-the-jobs-czar-from-hell-2376486.php

not only has GE moved thousands of its own jobs to CHINA, it now makes over half its profits internationally, and does NOT repatriate the money back to america, thus avoid taxes on it... meanwhile the other half of profits they make in america, they fudge just enough so they pay ZERO TAXES on it... in fact they often get billions in tax breaks netting them an effective profit through those tax breaks...

so I would hardly just call this guy a buddy... he's the very crook Obama claims is wrong for this country... and he hired him, it turns out he wasn't really interested in doing anything at his post and later got bored and never met with Obama anymore... once a year you meet with your job czar? seriously? this is the plan?

P.S. you can see my story from 2011 showed union negotiations back then were giving up things just to keep jobs in america... and now again in 2015 same thing... and this is the guy Obama hand picked to solve americas job problem... gee no wonder both are so screwed up...

 

I'm so glad that I left GE 12 years ago.

 

If you are tired of the neoliberalism of both political parties, get out and work for sanders. It is time to kill this oligarchy. Obama is an enabler of the oligarchy and does not represent the economic interests of working people. Clinton will not do it either, for it was her husband who joined in with the neoliberalism of the GOP, brought back by Reagan.

 

Just like they earned their pensions with benefits. That was also negotiated and was earned

 

Ah, the hazards of dealing with a union. Sounds like they should fire their leadership to me.