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CNN Live At Daybreak
GE Workers Strike To Protest Hike in Health Care Insurance
Aired January 14, 2003 - 06:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thousands of GE workers across the country are taking part in a two-day walkout today.
CNN's Whitney Casey joins us from Schenectady, New York to tell us what that's all about.
Good morning.
WHITNEY CASEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
As you can see, they are out here bright and early with us. This is just one of the 23 strikes that is going on right now as we speak across the country. Over 17,500 unionized GE workers striking in protest to their rising health care costs. What they say is that their out-of-pocket costs are going through the roof, and they don't understand it, while their company is recording record profits.
Joining me now is one of the shop stewards here. His name is Andy Gnoinski. He is a father of four children. He's been working for GE for 30 years.
Andy, how much are you saying that your health care co-payments are going to go up just in a year?
ANDY GNOINSKI, STRIKING GE WORKER: What they've done with the co-pay increases right now, we sat down and figured out what our costs would be from last year's costs to this year, and it's going to be over $1,000. And that's really if everybody stays as healthy as they are now.
CASEY: And you say that this sort of gets you a little bit upset, because you see how well your company is doing. Your company has recorded these record profits. You saw Jack Welch's compensation package. And that gets you pretty angry, because you don't understand why you have to pay and why your company can't foot the bill.
GNOINSKI: We understand about the health care increases. I mean, that's been in the news enough that everybody knows that it's going up. But we've tried several things with the company when they proposed this increase, and they didn't want to listen to us. We offered to lobby to Congress to try to really do something about the health care problems. Everybody hears about the ridiculous prices people pay when they're in the hospital for medication vs. what they might pay when they buy a medication outside of the hospital. They didn't want to do that.
And we really understood the reasoning, because they have a medical systems part of their business, and they sell product to the same companies they'd be asking to lower their costs.
Then we asked them to increase the cost to us on our weekly amount that we pay for our benefits. They still got over 300,000 employees across the world, so it would have been pretty easy. They say they want to save $30 million. If they had increased everybody by $2, just the 300,000 employees, it would have been over 31 million. But they chose not to do that also.
So, now they're taking it out of the pockets of the people that are going to be sick, and we really think that's a form of discrimination.
CASEY: Thanks, Andy, so much. We'll let you get back to the picket line.
GNOINSKI: Thank you.
CASEY: And as you heard, Andy said what GE says is that they are a profitable company, but to keep profits up, they've got to keep costs down. And health care costs, they say, is their No. 1 cost.
Back to you -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Whitney Casey reporting live from Upstate New York this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
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Aired January 14, 2003 - 06:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thousands of GE workers across the country are taking part in a two-day walkout today.
CNN's Whitney Casey joins us from Schenectady, New York to tell us what that's all about.
Good morning.
WHITNEY CASEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.
As you can see, they are out here bright and early with us. This is just one of the 23 strikes that is going on right now as we speak across the country. Over 17,500 unionized GE workers striking in protest to their rising health care costs. What they say is that their out-of-pocket costs are going through the roof, and they don't understand it, while their company is recording record profits.
Joining me now is one of the shop stewards here. His name is Andy Gnoinski. He is a father of four children. He's been working for GE for 30 years.
Andy, how much are you saying that your health care co-payments are going to go up just in a year?
ANDY GNOINSKI, STRIKING GE WORKER: What they've done with the co-pay increases right now, we sat down and figured out what our costs would be from last year's costs to this year, and it's going to be over $1,000. And that's really if everybody stays as healthy as they are now.
CASEY: And you say that this sort of gets you a little bit upset, because you see how well your company is doing. Your company has recorded these record profits. You saw Jack Welch's compensation package. And that gets you pretty angry, because you don't understand why you have to pay and why your company can't foot the bill.
GNOINSKI: We understand about the health care increases. I mean, that's been in the news enough that everybody knows that it's going up. But we've tried several things with the company when they proposed this increase, and they didn't want to listen to us. We offered to lobby to Congress to try to really do something about the health care problems. Everybody hears about the ridiculous prices people pay when they're in the hospital for medication vs. what they might pay when they buy a medication outside of the hospital. They didn't want to do that.
And we really understood the reasoning, because they have a medical systems part of their business, and they sell product to the same companies they'd be asking to lower their costs.
Then we asked them to increase the cost to us on our weekly amount that we pay for our benefits. They still got over 300,000 employees across the world, so it would have been pretty easy. They say they want to save $30 million. If they had increased everybody by $2, just the 300,000 employees, it would have been over 31 million. But they chose not to do that also.
So, now they're taking it out of the pockets of the people that are going to be sick, and we really think that's a form of discrimination.
CASEY: Thanks, Andy, so much. We'll let you get back to the picket line.
GNOINSKI: Thank you.
CASEY: And as you heard, Andy said what GE says is that they are a profitable company, but to keep profits up, they've got to keep costs down. And health care costs, they say, is their No. 1 cost.
Back to you -- Carol.
COSTELLO: All right, Whitney Casey reporting live from Upstate New York this morning.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
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