Author: Site Staff

The reimbursement system used by most health insurers to pay out-of-network claims is flawed and results in higher out-of-pocket costs for plan members and lower costs for insurers and other payers, charges New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo announced Wednesday, February 13, plans to sue Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group Inc. and its subsidiaries for dramatically under-reimbursing out-of-network medical expenses using data provided by Ingenix, which is a unit of UnitedHealth.

Cuomo has issued subpoenas to 16 of the nation’s largest health insurers—including Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna Inc.; Empire BlueCross BlueShield, a unit of Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc.; and Cigna Healthcare, a unit of Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp.—to determine whether they also are underpaying providers by relying on the Ingenix’s Prevailing Healthcare Charges System.

The investigation could ultimately affect self-insured employers as well, as they often rely on Ingenix data, observers note.

Ingenix’s PHCS is used by most of the nation’s health insurers to calculate out-of-network reimbursements based on “usual and customary”—also known as “reasonable and customary”—charges for medical expenses. Ingenix says it derives these usual and customary charges by using insurers’ billing information for similar types of medical services, taking into account the type of physician and geographic location.

Cuomo charges that the usual and customary rates produced by Ingenix were “remarkably lower” than the actual cost of typical medical expenses, leading to higher out-of-pocket charges to plan members.

Cuomo also criticized UnitedHealth’s ownership of Ingenix, saying it is a conflict of interest because the insurer uses Ingenix’s data to support its own reimbursement rates.
In response to Cuomo’s announcement, UnitedHealth issued a statement defending its database.

“The reference data is rigorously developed, geographically specific, comprehensive and organized using a transparent methodology that is very common in the health care industry,” UnitedHealth said.

If the litigation determines the Ingenix system is skewed in favor of payers, it could affect self-insured employers as well as insurers since most of them rely on the same systems used by insurers to calculate health plan reimbursements, benefit experts note.

“It is bad news for several reasons. Self-insured employers use the same reasonable and customary basis for out-of-network claims, so it could lead to higher claims costs,” said Joe Martingale, an independent benefit consultant based in New York.

“The net effect is that the insurers didn’t pay enough, and self-insured employers that bought into those systems are going to be similarly affected,” said Mark A. Rucci, senior vice president at Apex Management Group, a benefit consulting unit of Gallagher Benefits Services based in Princeton, New Jersey.

Filed by Joanne Wojcik of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

Employee engagement doesn’t end when someone leaves the payroll, according to IBM. In fact, helping workers determine a direction before walking out the door increases their affinity for the company.

A new program the technology giant will launch in July is designed to persuade employees and retirees to consider working for the Department of Treasury. The agency says it must fill 14,000 “mission critical” jobs during the next two years, including 7,950 at the Internal Revenue Service.

The Treasury talent shortage reflects a government-wide trend. The Office of Personnel Management estimates that 500,000 federal positions could come open during the next five years as baby boomers retire. To fill the gap, the OPM is trying to persuade the private sector’s baby boomers to begin “encore careers” in the public sector.

IBM is the first to sign on to FedExperience Transitions to Government, a pilot project sponsored by the Partnership for Public Service, an organization that promotes government hiring.

Neither the Treasury Department nor IBM has set a target for the number of people they want for the agency. Their primary goal is to establish a program with a low attrition rate.

The effort is part of IBM’s Global Citizen’s Portfolio, a $60 million program the company launched last summer. In addition to the $6 million to $8 million transition dimension, the initiative includes $2.5 million in funding for the Corporate Service Corps, which consists of 600 employees that IBM will send to emerging markets to work on economic and social issues.

The portfolio is IBM’s way to help employees thrive in the global economy. Even when they find a niche outside the company, IBM still benefits, according to Stanley Litow, vice president for corporate citizenship and corporate affairs.

IBM generates good will from people who start a fulfilling career in teaching or government, said Litow, a former deputy chancellor for New York City schools.

The way IBM operates on a daily basis—stressing collaboration internally and with suppliers in a $48 billion procurement system—makes its 350,000 employees a good source of talent for government, Litow said.

Challenges in luring people from the private sector to the government include a lack of knowledge about federal openings and a bureaucratic hiring process.

“There are a lot of things we can do better; we know that,” OPM Director Linda Springer said. She emphasized that federal agencies offer rich benefit packages and flexibility.

—Mark Schoeff Jr.

After three months of acrimony, an armistice between Hollywood’s writers and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers was finally approved late on Tuesday, February 12. The final vote: 92.5 percent of 3,775 writers who turned out in Los Angeles and New York to cast ballots or fax in proxies voted in favor of ending the 100-day strike, according to the Writers Guild America.

“The strike is over. Our membership has voted, and writers can go back to work,” Patric M. Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, West, said in a statement.

But while it’s safe to say writers are heading back to work, things are hardly back to normal: Networks that had exercised force majeure clauses to slash deals with writers might not be so quick to re-sign nearly as much talent as before. Having larded prime time with reality shows and other stopgaps, many writers and agents simply do not expect scripted TV to return to previous levels next season—let alone this spring.

At every broadcast network, executives were clustered in conference rooms and around white boards Wednesday, February 13, seeking to undo the ataxia that the WGA work stoppage had unleashed on their shooting schedules and broadcast days. Hard decisions were being made about which shows would shoot new episodes, which would be scuttled, and which would be salted away until fall.

The strike was, above all things, a strike about the digital future.

Determined not to miss out on a bonanza of cash akin to the DVD and home video windfall it missed out on 20 years ago, writers did manage to successfully gain a toehold on the Web: According to a 2007 PricewaterhouseCoopers forecast, half of all entertainment industry growth will be generated through online and mobile by 2011. In the long run, many writers say, the near-term pain will have been worth it.

WGA members will next vote to ratify a tentative three-year contract with the AMPTP, according the guild.

Filed by Claude Brodesser-Akner of Advertising Age, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has permitted several companies to exclude proxy access proposals from their ballots. The approvals could set the stage for a legal battle later this year.

In four no-action letters posted on its Web site Monday, February 11, the commission decided to step aside and allow Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase, E-Trade Financial and apparel marketer Kellwood Co. to exclude proposals by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Those proposals, if passed by shareholders, would have allowed shareholders to amend company bylaws to include director nominees proposed by any shareholder who has held more than 3 percent of common stock for at least two years.

The SEC also allowed Croghan Bancshares to exclude a similar proposal by an Ohio investor, Samuel Danziger. That proposal would have allowed director nominations by shareholders with more than 1 percent of common stock held for at least one year.

The five companies had sought to exclude the proxy proposals from their ballots, stating that a new SEC rule prohibits shareholders from proposing bylaw changes related to director nominations. Attorneys for Croghan Bancshares also claimed the proposal they received was “inherently vague.”

The SEC voted in November to bar shareholders from proposing company bylaw changes related to director nominations. The rule, reportedly pushed through by the commission’s Republican majority, was denounced by then-Commissioner Annette Nazareth, labor investors, state pension funds and Democratic lawmakers.

At a summer open meeting, the SEC floated another rule that would somewhat open up the proxy process to shareholders. That more restrictive access rule did not have enough votes to pass, either, because Democratic Commissioner Roel Campos had resigned before the vote was held.

A legal battle over proxy access wouldn’t be unprecedented. In 2006, AFSCME won a court ruling against American International Group, allowing the union to propose a rule to nominate its own slate of directors. The court in that case told the SEC to clarify its rules on proxy access, which set the stage for last year’s proxy access vote.

Rich Ferlauto, AFSCME’s director of corporate governance and pension investment, noted that AFSCME will respond to the SEC’s decision in the next few weeks.

In an interview earlier this year, he told Financial Week that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where such lawsuits would likely be filed, is a good venue for his union because the court is generally sympathetic to shareholder concerns.

Filed by Nicholas Rummell of Financial Week, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com

Employers that sponsor housing assistance programs see them as a popular benefit that fosters employee loyalty and reduces turnover. Positive outcomes from the initiatives are likely to grow during the current mortgage market meltdown.

CVS Caremark launched Prescriptions for Homeownership in 2005 in Washington and last year in Los Angeles. The company, which has helped 46 employees in the capital and six in California close on homes, offers $500 in down payment assistance.

CVS also makes an annual contribution to Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church in Washington to support a housing education program that the church conducts with Freddie Mac.

Harley-Davidson Motor Co. gives eligible employees $2,500 in down payment help to purchase homes in neighborhoods surrounding company facilities in the Milwaukee area. From 2000 to 2005, the motorcycle manufacturer provided $67,500 in assistance to 27 employees.

CVS and Harley-Davidson were honored on Capitol Hill during an event Monday, February 11, sponsored by Homes for Working Families. The nonprofit group gave Pioneer Awards to 14 companies that have launched housing assistance programs.

The organization targets families who make between 60 percent and 120 percent of the annual median income for their region. That amounts to between $46,000 and $92,000 in San Jose, California, and $24,000 and $48,000 in New Orleans. Nationally, it’s $25,000 to $50,000.

In addition to CVS and Harley-Davidson, award recipients were Aflac, Applied Materials Inc., Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP, Citizens Financial Group, the cities of Columbia, South Carolina, and Seattle, Johns Hopkins University, Northrop Grumman Corp., the Schwan Food Co., Honeywell, Unite Here, and the University of Chicago and University of Chicago Medical Center.

Each of the companies offers housing benefits, which include help with down payments, education and counseling as well as rental, renovation and construction assistance. Homes for Working Families is distributing a guidebook on housing programs to about 2000 employers, local governments and advocacy groups.

CVS housing assistance pays off in engagement.

“We really look at this as a retention tool,” said Steve Wing, director of government programs. “If we can help [employees], especially in hard times, the loyalty is going to be there.”

Harley-Davidson sees its program as an investment in its community. It targets its initiative, called “Walk to Work,” at neighborhoods near its offices, which have moderately priced, older and architecturally unique houses.

“It builds a lot of stability and equity for us in the neighborhoods where we do business,” said Tony Shields, Harley-Davidson manager of community relations.

Both Wing and Shields stress that the educational component is as beneficial to workers as the monetary assistance.

Harley-Davidson has an annual $6000 contract with Select Milwaukee, which administers the housing program and provides credit counseling. In Washington, Wing said that the CVS relationship with Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church was the catalyst for success.

Employees felt more comfortable navigating the Washington housing market with their minister, the Rev. Lionel Edmonds, involved in the process along with Freddie Mac.

“Who do people trust the most? The church,” Wing said. “We see that as a tremendous partnership and something we can build on. We don’t want the loan companies to have the upper hand. We want to make sure the best interest of the employee is met.”

Local governments are also participating with companies in housing assistance programs. In the Chicago area, Mayor Richard M. Daley, the Illinois Housing Authority and 60 employers work together.

“If they can prevent a predatory loan or a foreclosure, that promotes workforce stability,” said Robin Snyderman, vice president of community development at the Chicago Metropolitan Planning Council. “If people are in crisis at home, it’s much harder to do a good job at work.”

With the economy potentially heading into a recession, housing worries aren’t likely to dissipate. “Home affordability will continue to be a problem for American families for quite some time,” said Beverly Barnes, executive director of Homes for Working Families.

—Mark Schoeff Jr.

New York state Labor Commission officials said Monday, February 11, that they have fined businesses more than $4 million for illegally classifying workers as independent contractors, but that they had only scratched the surface of an extensive problem.

State Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith said a task force she chaired found more than 2,000 violations at 17 companies in the four months since Gov. Eliot Spitzer created the force. Smith noted that the work requires coordination among five agencies at the state and local level, slowing progress.

By counting employees as independent contractors, rather than full-time workers, employers avoid paying unemployment insurance, overtime, workers’ compensation insurance and other benefits.

The businesses targeted are expected to pay $1.4 million in unemployment insurance and $3 million for unpaid wages owed to workers.

Ed Ott, executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council and a longtime advocate for a crackdown on independent contractors, said the action will benefit most businesses.

“Misclassification is unfair to workers, unfair to employers who obey the law,” Ott said.

The governor’s action followed a study released last year by Cornell University professor Fred B. Kotler that estimated 700,000 workers are misclassified statewide.

Filed by Matthew Sollars of Crain’s New York Business, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

More U.S. employers are offering voluntary benefits to their employees for two main reasons: the growing cost of health care, which has led employers to shift costs to voluntary benefits, and the desire to attract and retain employees, experts say.

According to the fifth annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends by New York-based Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., 39 percent of employers ranked providing a wider array of voluntary benefits as either “extremely important” or “very important” in 2006, up from 31 percent in 2005.

By line of business, with an estimated $4.72 billion in voluntary benefit sales in 2006, disability insurance accounted for the largest share with 23 percent, followed by life insurance at 21 percent, according to Avon, Connecticut-based Eastbridge Consulting Group Inc.

A voluntary benefit program is “an easy way for employers to address” employee needs, says Lawrence Singer, senior vice president at Segal Co., a benefits consultant in New York. “The employer’s involvement is marginal, the investment is zero or quite low, and employees get the protection by buying the product with their own money.”

Randall Stram, Bridgewater, New Jersey-based vice president of employee paid products for MetLife, says employers today are in a conundrum. They want to retain employees, help them with their work/life issues and increase job satisfaction, but they also want to control benefit costs.

“The answer that many employers are coming to is that voluntary benefits are a very cost-effective way to supplement their employer-paid benefit offerings,” he says.

“Many employees are interested in [voluntary benefits] when they’re hired,” says Kathy Croley, payroll administrator for Laurel, Delaware-based Johnny Janosik Inc., a furniture retailer with about 300 employees that works with Voluntary Benefits Systems Inc., an Ellicott City, Maryland-based voluntary benefits marketer.

“Also, we like to help take care of our employees. It’s more beneficial to us in the long run,” says Croley of the retailer, which offers voluntary benefits that include short- and long-term disability, life, critical illness, dental and accident insurance.

Voluntary benefits also help employee recruitment, said Marjorie Teague, human resource manager of Mattawan, Michigan-based Ralph Moyle Inc., a 135-employee trucking firm. It “definitely gets them more motivated to come here rather than somewhere else,” said Teague, who works with Columbus, Georgia-based American Family Life Assurance Co. of Columbus, which is known as AFLAC.

Kathy McPhillips, director of benefits for Bensalem, Pennsylvania-based Charming Shoppes Inc., which operates 2,400 retail stores in 48 states, added homeowners, auto and pet insurance and a computer purchasing program to its existing voluntary benefits last year for its 33,000 employees.

The goal was “to really enhance our overall benefits package and some things we thought would be of particular value to our associates, full- and part-time,” says McPhillips, who works with consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide in Washington.

Furthermore, a voluntary benefits program gives employees “access to benefits at better rates” because they are part of a group.

“Then it allows them to pay for it through payroll deductions,” says Judy Hime, Jackson, Tennessee-based benefits manager for West Tennessee Health Care, which has about 5,600 employees.

Employees are less likely to miss a small sum taken out of their paycheck twice a month than “if they had to make a monthly or quarterly payment to the insurance company,” says Hime of the hospital chain, which has coverage through Hartford, Connecticut-based Cigna Corp.

Employers also are using so-called mini-medical plans, which cover basic medical services that include physician visits and prescription drugs, as a tool to retain employees where they may not have had medical coverage before, says Phil Grece, New York-based vice president and product manager in American International Group Inc.’s domestic accident and health division.

Increased medical costs are a factor as well.

“I think [voluntary benefits are] going to increase in popularity because the health insurance costs have continued to grow” and cutbacks in employer-paid programs are creating gaps in employees’ health coverage, says Ted Bosse, president of Voluntary Benefits Systems Inc.

“There’s many more employers that are not paying for what maybe five, 10 years ago was a traditional employer-paid benefit,” such as dental and disability insurance, says Mark Sylvester, vice president of voluntary sales at Kansas City, Missouri-based Assurant Employee Benefits, an employee benefits marketer.

“Companies are not just offering benefits for the sake of offering voluntary benefits, but they are offering it for a reason that would fit into their company benefit strategy,” says Garry Sullivan, senior vice president at Aon Consulting, a unit of Chicago-based Aon Corp. “If they just had an increase in their health care contributions for employees,” they may consider introducing an auto or homeowners program that would save employees money and help offset their higher health care costs, he says.

Additionally, employers have moved away from offering concierge-type products, such as discount movie tickets and take-home dinners, which were more common about 10 years ago, says MetLife’s Stram. “We’re seeing less of that, with more focus on the financial security, financial protection products,” which is a reflection of employers’ desire “to provide supplemental benefits to their employees.”

The suite of benefits offered to the 3,800 employees at Boston-based Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, however, includes group universal life and long-term care insurance; legal services; pet, auto, homeowners, renters, identify theft and travel insurance; and consumer product discounts for cell phones, electronics and movie tickets, says Debra Weafer, director of compensation and benefits.

There is “not a lot of opportunity to increase the benefits package,” and voluntary benefits are a way to “add something new and different for our associates,” Weafer says.

Filed by Judy Greenwald of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

Newly proposed Labor Department regulations governing the Family and Medical Leave Act will ease many administrative problems that employers have faced in trying to comply with the law, experts say.

The proposed FMLA regulations, released late last week, would update rules that the Labor Department published following enactment of the 1993 law, which requires employers to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave in a year after the birth or adoption of a child; to care for a sick child, parent or spouse; or when an employee has a serious illness.

The 477 pages of proposed regulations are a response to many of the issues employers raised after the Labor Department asked for public comments in late 2006.

The revised rules “are trying to restore balance to the FMLA,” says Marc Freedman, director of labor law policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

One of the biggest gripes employers have had with the current rules is that employees can take up to two days after an absence begins to notify employers that the time already taken off was under the FMLA.

Under the proposal, though, except in emergency situations, employees would have to follow procedures employers have established for notification.

“Providing advance notice is a huge benefit for employers” in planning and scheduling, says Jason Straczewski, director of human resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington.

“This is a big issue. It makes it a lot easier for employers to anticipate and schedule,” Freedman says.

In addition, the proposed regulations would allow employers to directly contact employees’ doctors when employers have questions about FMLA medical certification forms that the doctors have filled out.

By contrast, under the current rules employers are required to find doctors, who, in turn, would contact employees’ physicians.

“This is a huge deal,” says Matt Morris, a consultant with Hewitt Associates in Lincolnshire, Illinois. In some cases, employers have been spending thousands of dollars each year on fees that doctors have charged for contacting the physicians who filled out FMLA certification forms, he says.

If the proposed rules are finalized, that expense could be eliminated since employers could directly contact employees’ physicians on FMLA certification issues.

Other provisions in the proposed regulations would allow employers to require employees to obtain certification twice a year—rather than annually—of medical conditions entitling them to FMLA leave while simplifying the definition of what constitutes a serious medical condition.

But not all issues were resolved in the revised regulations to employers’ satisfaction, with perhaps the biggest being the minimum amount of unscheduled intermittent leave that employees can take. In some cases, employees can take as little as a few minutes of leave under the FMLA, resulting in a big record keeping burden on employers.

To address that problem, employers wanted the Labor Department to set a minimum amount of time—perhaps a few hours—whenever an employee requested leave under the FMLA.

The Labor Department, though, said it lacks the authority because of the way FMLA is written. If such a requirement were to be imposed, it would have to come from Congress, the agency said.

Additionally, the Labor Department largely dodged providing guidance on legislation Congress passed last month that expands the FMLA for employees in military families, with the department requesting comments rather than issuing rules.

“They are throwing it back” to the public, says Sanders Lowery, a Hewitt Associates consultant in Lincolnshire, who added that the Labor Department is raising issues that benefits experts already have asked about the expansion of the federal law.

Filed by Jerry Geisel of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

Police radio dispatchers in Columbus, Ohio, allege in a class-action lawsuit that the city illegally required them to disclose detailed medical information to supervisors to justify taking sick leave.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus in December on behalf of three former and two current radio operators, stems from the police department’s efforts to crack down on employees who abuse sick-leave policies. The lawsuit highlights the difficulties that arise when an employer must staff a service that operates continuously, often under stressful circumstances, revealing the delicate balance between protecting medical privacy and enforcing a sick-leave policy.

In its effort to curb abuse, the lawsuit alleges, the city erroneously labeled the plaintiffs as sick-leave abusers and then, in an effort to rein them in, required workers to send medical notes up the chain of command to their supervisor. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Michael DeWitt, says this policy is illegal.

“This information goes up the chain of command,” DeWitt says. “It doesn’t just go up to the benefits department, which can have this information.”

The lawsuit casts a wide legal net, alleging the city’s actions violate a number of federal laws and constitutional amendments, from the Family and Medical Leave Act to the First, Fifth and 14th amendments to the Constitution. The plaintiffs allege that they were wrongly disciplined and defamed.

The city says it was simply enforcing the terms of the labor contract between the city and the radio dispatchers’ union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. According to DeWitt and a city attorney, Pam Gordon, the contract said that taking sick leave under certain circumstances—taking a sick day every Friday or taking a sick leave immediately after a holiday, for example—would automatically require employees to show their supervisor a note from a doctor detailing the medical condition that forced them to take off work.

“We have a collective bargaining agreement and that governs the city’s action,” Gordon says.

The police department has since changed its policy of sending medical notes up the chain of command to employees’ supervisors, Gordon says.

But for plaintiffs like Teresa Ruby, the change in policy came too late. Ruby says the stress of working as a police dispatcher harmed her health to the point where her doctor said she should not work beyond a normal eight-hour day. She used a broadly worded note from her doctor to take leave when she was asked to work overtime.

After being labeled a sick-leave abuser, she refused to detail to her supervisor the exact nature of her medical condition. She says she did not resist showing her detailed doctor’s note to her human resources manager.

She felt that specifying her condition to her supervisors would hurt her chances for promotion. In the lawsuit, her symptoms were described as stress, anxiety and sleep deprivation.

“I was up there long enough to hear them talk about other people,” says Ruby, who worked as a dispatcher for about 15 years. “There’s no confidentiality up there, none.”

Ruby, who was hired as a dispatcher in 1991, says she requested a transfer but her reputation as an employee who abused sick policy closed the doors to other city jobs.

After being suspended for 31 days without pay, Ruby quit. Eventually she found work as a clerk for the state of Ohio, earning half as much as she did as a radio dispatcher.

David Lefkow, a partner with Holland and Knight in Chicago, believes the collective bargaining agreement should guide the city’s actions.

He says supervisors may need guidance from human resource managers about how to best balance the needs of the employer with a person’s desire for privacy.

“The lesson for HR isi f you have a sick-leave policy, help your frontline supervisors understand it and implement it,” Lefkow says. “HR should be monitoring the frontline supervisors so they don’t get into situations that create these kinds of lawsuits.”

—Jeremy Smerd

In a speech Friday, February 8, United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger stood up for the productivity of union labor and urged the country to adopt a single-payer health care system.

Gettelfinger, who has led the 640,000-member union since 2002, told the City Club of Cleveland on Friday that the health care crisis, the lack of a national industrial policy and the need for improved trade agreements are at the top of his agenda.

“We believe health care should be a right, not a privilege for those who can afford it,” he said of the union’s push for a national health plan that covers everyone in the country.

He also blamed the problems of American manufacturing on the lack of a cohesive national industrial policy to build up American manufacturing, which, he argued, has led to the movement offshore of entire industries.

“Unless we take action, we are going to see a continued decline in manufacturing industries,” Gettelfinger said.

Fair trade agreements, as opposed to what he said are current free trade policies, would press for a level playing field on issues such as employee and human rights.

He added that he was disappointed that the economic stimulus package recently approved by Congress did not included extended unemployment benefits for laid-off workers.

Gettelfinger also argued against what he described as the conventional wisdom that because of union work rules, nonunion auto plants in the U.S. operated by foreign automakers were more efficient than union plants.

Citing the respected Harbour Report of automotive manufacturing operations, he said, “Trained, experienced, union workers with a voice on the job add value to the manufacturing process.”

Filed by Jay Miller of Crain’s Cleveland Business, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.