Its years as the nation's largest employer a distant memory, General Motors Corp. may still be setting the trend for corporate-worker relations in shedding its obligation for the health care of 340,000 retirees. GM says its historic deal with the United Auto Workers as part of a new four-year labor contract will transfer $46.7 billion in retiree health care liability to a trust fund that will be administered by the union. Other corporations are watching with interest, said Glenn Feldman, director of the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. They may soon be pushing unions to let them put their pension or other benefits into similar trust funds called voluntary employees beneficiary associations, or VEBAs.
See "GM-UAW Health Care Deal May Spark Trend", Jesse J. Holland, The New York Times, October 14, 2007