Health-care costs worry picketers

• By GARY PERILLOUX
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Nov 6, 2009 - Page: 6B

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

In north Baton Rouge, 135 workers picketing a Mississippi River chemical plant represent a microcosm of the national debate on health care.

The Rhodia Inc. workers, who operate and maintain sulfuric acid and artificial vanilla production units, say medical insurance costs are soaring — threatening to wipe out their wage gains and, effectively, to reduce their pay — while the company won’t put a cap on health-care costs for a three-year contract being negotiated.

Largely for that reason, the Teamsters Local 5 members rejected a three-year contract proposal from the company Monday. A prior contract had ended Sunday, and workers began picketing Tuesday.

“We understand that health care is going up,” said Keith Partin, business manager for Teamsters Local 5. “That’s not the sticking point, either.”

What’s at issue is predictability. Partin and others representing the workers say they’re willing to absorb health premium increases — if they’re fixed at a reasonable rate for the next three years.

They claim, for 2010, that Rhodia proposes a 5.4 percent premium increase on single coverage and a 12 percent increase on family coverage used by most workers. Teamster officials said they could accept those same increases for 2011 and 2012, but Rhodia won’t nail down any costs for 2011 and beyond.

In 2007, for instance, costs soared 27 percent, and workers can’t handle a repeat of that hike when Rhodia is proposing wage increases of 1 percent, 3 percent and 3 percent, respectively, for the next three years, Partin said.

Though it won’t discuss specifics of the negotiations, Rhodia acknowledges health care has become a thorny topic.

“Certainly, the health-care issue is one on which the entire country is focused,” Rhodia spokesman David Klucsik said, alluding to efforts by President Barack Obama to expand government’s role, through Congress, to cover more Americans with health-care insurance.

“It’s not a matter of willingness,” Klucsik said about Rhodia’s ability to nail down medical costs in a new contract. “It’s a matter of the changing health-care landscape, where I don’t think anyone has a prediction on what the structure of our health-care situation will be.”

There are other sticking points. Rhodia workers aren’t willing to accept the company’s wage proposals — given the uncertainty on health care — and they’re not pleased with a Rhodia proposal for mandatory on-call service. Under that provision, maintenance workers could get an additional $140 but be tied up for an entire week on stand-by status, Partin said.

Doug Patterson, president of a union committee negotiating for the workers, said that one call out of 223 calls in the past year led to a significant delay in production while the plant operated on voluntary on-call status.

None of those situations led to any environmental safety problems for Rhodia, said Wayne Graffia, secretary-treasurer for the union.