Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 5, 1993                   TAG: 9309030097
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: D-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY GLENN GAMBOA AKRON BEACON JOURNAL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

UNION MEMBERS MAY BE ASKED TO PAY PART OF HEALTH-CARE BILL

But that could change next month when President Clinton is expected to unveil his much-awaited proposal to reform the nation's health-care system.

While the details of his proposal are unknown, hints are that big labor - despite contracts to the contrary - will be asked to foot some of the health-care bill.

No way, say the unions, some of which are in critical negotiations in which health care co-pay is an issue that eventually could lead to massive nationwide strikes.

"We don't feel that the escalating cost of health care should be taken off the backs of the workers," said United Auto Workers spokesman Karl Mantyla. "It's a benefit that has been negotiated over a period of time and we fought hard to get that."

For the UAW, the issue is particularly sensitive. Its 900,000 members are negotiating a new contract with the Big Three automakers. Chrysler and Ford have proposed that the UAW pay some of the cost of future health care. The union's answer has been succinct: No.

The United Rubber Workers, meanwhile, is fast approaching major contract talks. The union sees the issue similarly, but spokesman Curt Brown adds this point: "It's really a disgrace for a country like ours to have 37 million people without insurance. We have long supported health care cost containment. Unfortunately, the providers and the health insurers have not worked as hard as the companies and the unions."

Clinton has two plans afoot: To reduce the cost of health care and to provide insurance for all Americans.

According to an administration briefing summary, the White House will "ask all employers and employees - including those who now pay nothing - to contribute to the cost of their health care."

Will this mean the union workers as well? Yes, say experts. They, like all Americans, could be taxed on their health benefits or they could be asked to pay into a pool for the uninsured.

Or they could be asked to pay nothing.

It seems the larger the union the less likely its members will contribute directly to health care reform. According to the conservative research group The Heritage Foundation, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program - which covers several unions and about 9 million current and retired federal employees and their families - may not be changed at all in one proposal being considered.

Union leaders believe that is the way it should be.

Officials at the UAW said the contract proposals from Chrysler and Ford are unacceptable.

Even before contract talks began this summer, officials at the UAW said health care was "sacred ground" and that the issue was one the membership would be willing to strike over.

"That means no co-payment," said the UAW's Mantyla. "That means no deductible."

John Beck, assistant professor at Michigan State University's School of Labor and Industrial Relations, said the contracts should stand no matter what health care reform legislation would change.

"The legislation [that] will be written is a floor not a ceiling," Beck said. "The main issue is more over whether those benefits will be taxed rather than whether they will be forced to pay."

There's precedent for his point: The recently enacted Family Leave Act exempted union members from its provisions until their contracts expire.

Beck is sympathetic to both sides: "The rising cost of health insurance is so dramatic, you can't help but see where the company would want relief. But at a time when the last real pay increase came in 1979, workers feel that health care is the No. 1 part of the contract in importance to them, and they want to keep it the way it is."

Declared Mantyla: "Regardless . . . we will fight to maintain the present levels of coverage."