by Donna Slimsky
President, Sub-Local 28, UE Local 222
Berlin, CT
In Berlin, Connecticut, the town had several different insurance plans for its employees, and it was very confusing to administer. In October 2009, at our urging, a “Benefits Committee” was formed which was comprised of union presidents from white collar (Sub-local 28), blue collar (Sub-local 52 of UE Local 222), mid-management, and nursing bargaining units, a rep from top management, the finance director, human resources director, and the town manager. (The police union was invited but chose not to be a part of this).
We met every other week and had representatives come in several times from Anthem and our insurance broker. We asked them to give us any information they could on the town’s current insurance plans and how they were set up. We also learned what it means to be self-insured and how that affects the plan costs. Another thing that came up was that Anthem was not really doing what we thought they should be for us.
After about six months, we as a group came up with a proposal for one plan. It was given to Anthem and they came back with a plan with cost savings to both the town and the employee. Although the employee savings were not huge, it still did save employees some money. We also were able to get about $30,000 savings the first year from Anthem which in part was for items that were not being done to our satisfaction. The employees were also educated on how they can save themselves money by making wise choices in their care.
The plan was voted on by the unions and passed. We were able to get all on the same plan during our open enrollment in May. We have taken out the insurance section from the separate labor contracts and came up with an agreement, covering insurance only, for all the participating unions, which we hope to call the “Benefits Document”. Now the unions cannot be played off against each other over health insurance in ourn regular contract negotiations. The premium cost sharing percentages is 12 percent for fiscal year 2010, 12 percent for 2011, 13 percent in 2012 and 14 percent in 2013, which in these times we felt was a great deal. The insurance will be negotiated again in 2014, with representatives from each union involved. There is specific language included in the agreement to protect both sides, and anyone can back out if we find this is not working. We are hoping that other benefits that should be the same for all can be added into this document.
This committee is still together and examining other benefits, and we plan to keep it going for a long time. There was a great deal of knowledge gained for all employees and we hope to continue learning more and hopefully making changes that will be beneficial to both the town and the employees.