Last Updated: Oct 8, 2007
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Issue no. 807
Editorial
Editorial: The Vultures of Wall Street Are Circling over the GM VEBA
Pages 2-3
Egypt: New strike of textile workers
Rights of “Indigenous People”: A formal right, a real disappearance
Burma: A dictatorship supported by the big powers
Simi Valley: Right wing attacks on immigrant sanctuary
Pages 4-5
“Ford is in worse financial shape,” NO! They make it, then they take it away
The devil in the GM contract: Sell out your children, your parents and yourselves
Caterpillar workers know all about VEBA
If GM risks bankruptcy – cover retirees with GM stock!
New Attendance Rules: GM Owns You
VEBA good for 80 years? Not even 80 months!
COLA formula maintained – but the money disappears!
Chrysler: Scheduling a vote with nobody there
Key sections of the UAW GM contract on-line
Skilled trades on a chopping block
GM Contract – A monument to worthless promises
Pages 6-7
LAX: One near miss after another
Five workers dead – the cost of pushing to increase profits
Michigan budget deal: Exactly as scripted
Page 8
CEOs “sacrifice” in a time of war
Congress can’t find money for poor children
Caterpillar workers know all about VEBA
Oct 8, 2007
The UAW agreed to a VEBA with Caterpillar in 1998, under which the company agreed to fund a health care trust.
This fund ran out in six years! Said one Caterpillar retiree, “God, did we get stuck ... Initially the VEBA worked OK, but it just got eaten up by the astronomical rise in medical insurance.”
This same worker said “I wouldn’t want anybody to go through what we’ve gone through.”
Nor would any GM worker want to go through it – if they only knew!