On Thursday, November 4 the Guild made its first
attempt to roll back Time Inc.’s draconian 2005 health-care changes,
proposing a set of realistic, moderate increases to the current health plan.
New York Guild President Barry Lipton presented the changes
at the Local’s headquarters. He made the point that the overall economic
package that the company is proposing represents a drastic reduction in
employee compensation when the elimination of Stock Options (see On Time #9)
is factored in.
There were four parts to the Guild’s health-benefits
proposals:
·
Reduce the increase in premiums from 100% to 25%. The
company’s proposals would double everyone’s premiums who didn’t hit
specified caps, which would differ for different employees depending on the
health plan and the number of persons covered.
·
Elimination of the above-mentioned salary caps, to generate
savings that could be applied to lower-paid workers. The Guild feels that
higher-paid employees can better afford the 25% increase and don’t need the
cap to lower their increase below 25%.
·
Reduce drug co-pays to a maximum of $20 for all drugs (while
agreeing to the company’s 20%-of-the-cost co-pay for drugs costing less than
the maximum co-pay price, both retail and mail order. The company’s proposal
has co-pays that go up to $40. The Guild feels that employees would be
brutalized by $40 co-pays.
·
Set an out-of-pocket drug-cost maximum of $1,000 for an
employee, and $2,000 for employee +1 and employee + 2 or more. This is along
the lines of the medical out-of-pocket caps that are part of the current plan.
The Guild believes that its proposals strike a reasonable
balance between the needs of the company for cost controls and the needs of
Guild-covered employees for affordable health care. The Guild’s goal is to make an honest woman and man out of
Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore and Editor-In-Chief Norman Pearlstine, who wrote in a
staff memo on November 1, “Although these adjustments (to health benefits)
aren’t extensive they’ll require everyone to contribute a bit more.”
The company made no response last Thursday to the Guild’s
proposals, saying that the suggestions required much calculation by
management. The company’s representatives will be contacting the Guild about
future meetings.
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