Two-tier wage in UAW-GM contract means drastic pay cuts for US workers

The UAW leadership is backing this catastrophic attack on its own members as the quid pro quo for GM’s agreement to hand over to the union $30 billion out of $50 billion in healthcare liabilities owed by the company to more than 300,000 retired UAW GM workers and their family members. If the UAW is successful in pushing through similar deals at Ford and Chrysler, it will become a business enterprise controlling a healthcare trust fund, a so-called Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA), worth $70 billion, making the union one of the largest healthcare insurers in the US.

The auto companies will be freed of any obligation to fund the healthcare of union retirees, and the UAW bureaucracy, headed by President Ron Gettelfinger, will seek to secure its own financial future and vastly increase its income by directly imposing cuts on the benefits of UAW retirees, while overseeing the destruction of the wages, jobs and benefits of active and future workers.