According to a notice Wednesday in the Federal Register, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employees Benefits Security Administration approved the transfer of stock from the reorganized, post-bankruptcy company. GM went through bankruptcy in the spring and summer of 2009.
GM stock, invested in the retiree fund, is meant to help cover future retiree health care expenses.
The UAW has a VEBA, or Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, meant to direct investments to cover future retiree health care costs.
The UAW represented workers at Delphi’s Needmore Road plant and other Delphi Dayton facilities that have closed. The International Union of Electronic Workers-Communication Workers of America represented workers at GM’s Moraine plant, which closed in December 2008.
Two months before the GM-Moraine plant’s closing, workers there approved a contract that included a VEBA. The contract left the IUE-CWA in charge of the fund to cover retiree health care costs. That changed in GM’s bankruptcy, said Jim Clark, IUE-CWA president.
“We bargained a high-deductible health plan for the pre-65 retirees funded by the new GM,” Clark said in an e-mail to the Dayton Daily News. “Each retiree had an option to cash out as well. The IUE-CWA (and splinter unions) have a $1 billion claim in GM bankruptcy.
“Obviously we do not expect to get 100 percent ... but we do feel that we will be able to provide a valuable benefit in some form for these post-65 retirees who have Medicare,” Clark added. “We are in the process of interviewing professional consultants to advise us in the best timing and method of executing our claim in order to get the best return.”
A message was left with a GM spokesman.
GM is preparing an initial public stock offering, expected in November.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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