LYNN — Members of the union representing General Electric (GE) workers at the River Works plant in Lynn said they are just discovering that GE has been cutting their dependents off of health-care coverage.
Affected members of the IUE-CWA Local 201 union said they were blindsided by the termination of health-care coverage for their loved ones without any conversation or phone call from any of their supervisors.
In addition to the Lynn plant, the union said — in a press release last week — that GE is dropping employees’ family members from coverage across a number of facilities nationwide.
“Imagine showing up at your doctor’s office only to find out that your kid’s health insurance has been cut off,” said Adam Kaszynski, a factory worker at the GE plant in Lynn, who is also the president of IUE-CWA Local 201. “So far, we’ve heard about this happening to six workers’ families here at the Lynn plant, and I wonder how many more GE workers here and across the country — unionized or not — are about to discover that their loved ones have lost medical and dental coverage.”
This news comes weeks after employees were sent a letter by GE executives saying that new offshoring and outsourcing plans will cut at least 80 jobs at the Lynn facility.
“GE has a responsibility to protect health-care access for its employees and their families who have worked for decades to make this plant successful and keep the Lynn community strong,” Kaszynski said. “GE is failing to honor its commitment to these workers. GE seems to be distracted with the $2 billion they are spending in an attempt to split into three companies.”
In response to this, a GE Aviation spokesperson said that like many other large employers, GE conducted an independent audit to ensure that those who participate in the health plans are eligible to do so, but “no employees lost their coverage as a result of this audit.”
“We sent multiple communications to employees and union leadership, hosted meetings and conducted individual outreach over the course of a year to help employees verify dependents, with 97 percent approved for our program,” a GE Aviation spokesperson said. “We are not aware of anyone who submitted all required paperwork by the deadline whose dependents have been denied coverage.”
This spokesperson also said GE communicated “extensively and transparently” with all employees about the need to participate in the verification process and continued to provide a toll-free benefits number to help answer employee questions.
During the summer of 2021, GE said it communicated directly with union leadership and asked for support encouraging remaining employees who had not submitted dependent paperwork to do so.
“We extended the deadline for submitting dependent information twice to ensure all employees had ample opportunity to submit the requested information,” a GE spokesperson said. “Sixty percent of dependents who were removed did not have any documentation provided to verify their participation.”
Corinna Cole, the wife of a GE worker of five years at the Lynn plant and mother of an 8-year-old daughter, said after years of relying on GE health coverage, she was shocked to find out days after she went to the doctor for an X-ray and tests that those medical expenses wouldn’t be covered.
“GE taking health care away from workers’ families, just after announcing they are cutting jobs at the plant, is adding insult to injury,” said Cole. “Ripping away health coverage from our family in the middle of a pandemic should be unthinkable. We submitted our marriage certificate to prove my eligibility, but that wasn’t good enough for the company. We’re asking GE to do the right thing and fix this by restoring our health care and the health care of all the other workers’ families who have been impacted.”
