September 29, 2006
To UC Clericals:
On Thursday September 21, 2006, the coalition of UC unions, including CUE, met
with representatives of UC's Office of the President regarding UC's proposed
changes in employee health benefit costs. We were informed that increased
costs of health care for UC employees are to be effective January 1, 2007.
We were horrified to learn that for a family, the cost of HealthNet, one of the
two most popular health plans for CUE-represented employees, is going up 70%.
Overall, the costs of health plans for employees are increasing 38%, while UC
payments are only increasing 8%.
A few years ago, UC divided employees into 4 pay bands for the purposes, UC
said, of determining the money available to pay UC's part of health plan costs.
The idea was that UC would provide the greatest subsidies to the lowest pay
band, the band that includes most clerical and service staff. (The unions have
strongly urged UC to adjust the pay bands to account for inflation and
recently-bargained pay increases.)
This year, UC has apparently decided to handle health care just like they
handle salaries for the highest paid staff. UC plans to assess the lowest paid
workers the highest increased costs. For example, subscribers who have
HealthNet family coverage in 2007 will see the following increases:
Pay band 1 (lowest paid) employee costs increase 70%
Pay band 2 employee costs increase 50%
Pay band 3 employee costs increase 30%
Pay band 4 (highest paid) employee costs increase 27%
What's wrong with this picture?
As Teri Gardner, a clerical at UCSC, said in a message to UC's Executive
Director of Human Resources and Benefits, Randy Scott: "Is this a cruel joke
or is this more of the same incredibly, outrageous acts that have been
plastered all over the news for the last year?"
This proposed plan significantly undercuts pay increases bargained for 2005 and
2006, and makes a mockery of the original intent of the pay bands, which was to
offset the effect of increases in health care premiums. These increased costs
for health care, together with increased pension premiums and, on many
campuses, parking costs, will offset the modest increases in pay which were
bargained.
To see how you will be personally affected, please check out the chart UC
provided us at:
Proposed 2007 UC Employee Contribution Amounts
To see CUE's analysis of this extremely unfair plan, check this out:
(information provided by Melinda Gandará, CUE, UCSB):
Analysis of UC's proposed increases for
employee contributions to health insurance premiums -- M. Gandará
Please let UC know how you feel about these outrageous increases. Contact
Randolph Scott, Executive Director of Human Resources and Benefits, Policy and
Program Design, at 510-987-0164, or mail to:
Randy.Scott@ucop.edu, and
please send us a copy at clericals@cueunion.org
In past years, UC unions have declined to bargain on benefits, because UC's
benefit plans were fair and compared well with those of other employers. Now
that UC is changing its attitude toward compensation and benefits for lower
paid employees, the unions will need to bring our bargaining strength to this
issue.
Watch this space for information on how you can help your union resist these
proposed changes.