GE contract negotiations come down to the wire

By JIM MARTIN, Erie Times-News jim.martin@timesnews.com

In the end, it came down to health care, pensions and retiree benefits.
That became apparent by the time the General Electric Co. had laid the last of its cards on the bargaining table Friday in New York City, where the Connecticut-based conglomerate has been negotiating for nearly a month with unions representing 15,200 workers.
The company's four-year labor agreement with those workers, including 3,200 at GE Transportation in Erie, expires at midnight tonight.
Daily updates, posted on the website of the United Electrical Radio & Machine Workers, one of the main unions involved, suggested Saturday that there were still differences to be resolved.
According to the UE, the company has proposed:
- Moving union workers to the Health Choice insurance plan that already applies to nonunion employees. The Health Choice plan would replace a $15 co-pay with a higher-deductible plan that would require employees to cover a certain percentage of health-care costs once those deductibles were met.
Wayne Burnett, business agent for Local 506 in Erie, said he didn't need....READ MORE