GE Strike Marred By Worker's Death
Thousands of striking workers at General Electric Co. kept up their two-day walkout to protest higher out-of-pocket health costs even as they mourned the death of a picket struck by a police car.
Union leaders said about 20,000 members of the International Union of Electronic Workers/Communications Workers of America and the Electrical Workers union took part in the walkout at 48 locations in 23 states. The affected plants manufacture everything from consumer appliances to jet engines.
At GE headquarters in Fairfield, Conn., company spokesman Gary Sheffer put the number of striking workers at about 17,500 and said GE was meeting the needs of its customers.
A few hours into the strike, Kjeston "Michelle" Rodgers, 40, was hit outside a GE plant in Louisville as the eight-year employee walked with a picket sign before daybreak. The car was from the police department in nearby Hollow Creek, officials said.
"The lady was out here doing something she believed in," said Dave Riddle, who was picketing at the same plant. "Rising health care in America is putting the crunch on everybody, and it cost her her life."
It is the first national strike at GE since 1969, when workers walked off the job for about 14 weeks.
The strike could be the first battle in a corporate war over health insurance costs, reports CBS News Correspondent Anthony Mason.
"It's a slap in the face we're seeing cutbacks in manpower, and now we're seeing cutbacks in benefits," said one union worker.
GE says those cuts will only cost the average worker $200 a year. The union says it will be double that and that GE can afford to absorb the cost:
"This is not, ladies and gentlemen, an American corporation that is hanging on by its fingernails," said union leader Edward Fire.
GE made more than $15 billion in profits last year. But the company says its annual health care premiums have soared by nearly half a billion dollars since 1999.
"Our profits went up about 7 percent in 2002. Our health care costs went up 14 percent," said Sheffer, the GE spokesman. "This is the most difficult cost issue that GE is facing as a company."
And GE is not alone. Nationally, employers' health care costs are skyrocketing, up more than 11 percent the past two years, according to a study by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.
"These are the biggest increases we've seen in more than a decade," says the foundation's Drew Altman.
Altman says in a weak economy many companies have little choice.
"You can take it out of wages or you can take it out of benefits, or you can do both. But there's no place else to go. And employers have told us in overwhelming numbers to expect more of the same next year."