City to pay in health plan deal (MY UNION WON, OUR CONTRACT HELD UP IN COURT!!!)

[Omaha Steve]

Technically this is an out of court settlement. The City of Omaha wanted to start charging people that retired years ago for health care. They wanted from 485 to over 900 per month. Problem was the contract at the time they retired spelled out an amount from nothing up to 7% of cobra rate per month. Anyway here is the first info on the settlement. First the Omaha World Heralds version followed by the largest TV coverage.


The Omaha paper (sad we only have one) http://www.omaha.com/article/20101012/NEWS01/709209995#city-to-pay-in-health-plan-deal

By Maggie O'Brien WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

The City of Omaha would continue to pay the entire cost of most city retirees' health care premiums under a tentative settlement announced Tuesday.

The deal, if approved by retired city workers, would resolve a lawsuit they filed earlier this year, City Human Resources Director Richard O'Gara said.

The retirees sued May 18 after the Omaha City Council voted that day to approve a plan that would impose premiums on many retired police, fire and civilian workers. Mayor Jim Suttle had said the proposal would save the city $4.1 million annually.

Under the proposed settlement, those retired on or before May 18 would not pay a health care premium, unless they had previously paid one. Those retiring after that date would pay the same premiums as active employees.

Attorneys representing the unions could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

O'Gara said the city views the settlement as a success, even though the city would continue to pay premiums for most retirees. He said the agreement would save Omaha taxpayers about $1 million a year by consolidating the number of health care plans for retirees and current employees from 34 to four.

FULL story at link.


WOWT here: http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/City_Police_Union_Reach_Tentative_Agreement_104794194.html

Mayor Jim Suttle's office said Tuesday that a reworking of the retiree health care package will save Omaha taxpayers $1 million, despite the fact that the vast majority of Omaha Police retirees will pay no premiums.

Under the settlement, the city will reduce the 34 different health care providers in the current plan down to 4.
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- Retirees who left their positions on or before May 18 will pay no premiums if they were not paying premiums prior to that month. Retirees paying premiums based upon COBRA rates will continue to have those premiums based on current annual COBRA rates.

- Civilian employees who retired before August 2006 will move to the current civilian health care plan, but will retain their current medical deductibles for two years and remain on their current prescription drug plan until they reach age 65.

- All other retirees will move to the current employee health care plans for fire, police, and civilian unions, which allows their health care plans, including deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses to be adjusted in conjunction with any future changes negotiated for active employee's health benefits.

- All police retirees as of May 2010 will pay the same premiums as active police employees, based upon the recently approved Police Officers Association contract. Current fire and future civilian union negotiations will address retiree health care premiums equal to those paid by active employee union members.

FULL story at link.

[laughingliberal]

1. K&R for Solidarity! nt

[bbinacan]

2. Hope they have the money for it. n/t

[progressoid]

3. Nope.

Like most of America, Omaha has budget problems too.

[Omaha Steve]

5. Omaha's tax rate is lower than all the suburb towns around it

The number of workers is down while areas that were annexed mean more service to provide etc.

http://www.afscme.org/publications/29818.cfm

By Clyde Weiss

You’ve heard it before — a lie that goes like this: Public employees (especially those who are represented by unions) are the overpaid recipients of pension and health care benefits that are way too generous. Corporate bosses, anti-union lawmakers and anti-worker ideologues at think tanks and media outlets like Fox News have repeated this fiction for many years. But today’s mythology has a new, more sinister twist — one that says the weight of public workers’ wages and benefits is what’s causing state and local budgets to crumble.

These myths shield the real ambitions of Wall Street and its ideological allies. They want to shrink the size of government, reduce or evade regulation, depress public worker wages and benefits so their own workers won’t demand better treatment, and deflate unions’ ability to give their members a stronger voice in the workplace.

Their campaign hasn’t been successful — yet. But their effort to direct public rage away from the economic devastation wrought by Wall Street fat cats and the collapse of the housing market has made us targets of their well-financed smears.

To deflect their own responsibility for the miserable state of the economy, these enemies of working people are attacking your wages and benefits by singling out public employees. In an interview with the Washington newspaper, POLITICO, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) recently called public workers “a new privileged class.” He added, “We used to think of government workers as underpaid public servants. Now they are better paid than the people who pay their salaries.”

Not true, of course. Public employee benefits are modest, and represent a good deal for the taxpayers who depend on the services that federal, state and local government workers provide. But that’s beside the point for people like Daniels, who have tried over and over again to destroy the ability of public service workers to win workplace rights and improve their lives by organizing with a union. On his first full day in office in 2005, Daniels rescinded state workers’ collective bargaining rights supported by three previous governors.

In the private sector, business leaders want to prevent their own workers from gaining the same rights, wages and benefits that union members now have. They also want to avoid paying their fair share of the taxes that support critical public services. To do that, they’re trying to turn public anger over lost jobs and low wages away from themselves and toward public service workers — particularly those who have worked to improve their lives through collective bargaining.

FULL article at link.

[spanone]

4. congrats!!! k&r

[Starry Messenger]

6. k & r

[Omaha Steve]

7. Kick

[WinkyDink]

8. As an NEA retiree paying $570/mo, I can only say I wish I had worked in Omaha.

[Catshrink]

9. WTG!

Congratulations!

:woohoo: