UAW members at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan hit the picket line
LANSING — More than a dozen Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan workers stood along Capitol Avenue in downtown Wednesday morning, joining hundreds of other UAW-represented employees who went on strike against the health care giant.
"It's about equal pay and outsourcing of jobs," said Kera Tennyson, a member of UAW Local 2256 in Lansing who held a picket sign outside BCBSM's downtown office. "We want to keep jobs in Michigan."
The UAW represents technical, office and professional employees whose jobs include customer service, billing, claims and maintenance for the Blues. Those employees belong to four local unions across the state, but only the Blues workers in Amalgamated Local 2256 are on strike, a union official said.
Workers walked off the job at midnight Tuesday as negotiators worked around-the-clock it an effort to reach an agreement on a new contract, said Alan Harris, a local union vice president who stood on the picket line. Harris said union members had been working under the terms of a contact that expired at the end of August.
"The insurance industry is doing great right now, but we have not seen that carry over to the workers," Harris said.
The union wants to do away with a two-tier pay scale, stop the outsourcing of jobs and restore benefits lost when things were not so good, he said. The current system "requires a staggering 22 years for an employee at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to reach pay parity," the union said in a statement.
The company has been outsourcing and contracting out job classifications that previously were negotiated by the union, a practice that has resulted in 40% decrease in union membership over the past decade, the union said.
Workers for the Blue Care Network are not part of the strike action, BCBSM said. The union walked away from the bargaining table after "weeks of continuous negotiations," it said.
Blue Cross has "put contingencies in place" to continue serving customers, providers and members, but said some services will require longer wait times, particularly those done by phone.
"We encourage our members and customers to use our online and app-based services during this period, and we regret the inconvenience caused by this situation — which we desire to resolve quickly, consistent with the spirit of collective bargaining, with our partners at the UAW,” the company said in its statement.
The Blue Cross strike comes as automaker contracts with the UAW are due to expire just before midnight Thursday, with nearly 150,000 employees at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis threatening to walk out of factories and warehouses across the country when the clock strikes midnight.
The Detroit Free Press contributed to this report.
Contact Ken Palmer at kpalmer@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @KBPalm_lsj.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: UAW members at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan hit the picket line in Lansing
