Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1948-09-17
What's
New?
BY
Edward ]. Duck

A modern version of the game known as
Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?" is
being played from coast to coast except that
we may substitute the word rebate" for "but-
ton"
This lucrative racket-and I do mean
racket-is one of the rottenest swindles ever
perpetrated on the American worker. Every
one benefits but the fellow who foots the bill
for the premiums You guessed tim talking
about the insurance you subscribe for at the
employment office when you're hired.
And more than a few plants are guilty of
sponsoring this racket. Here's proof:
Almost every insurance company provides
for rebate to the policy-holder Cor someone)
based on the amount of premiums paid in,
less that expended, or paid out, and less the
cost of administration. You know this is true,
or you should, because you have doubtless
received dividends on your own policies that
you hold aside from those you take at the
plant.
For instance-in case where there was no
company-chiseling setup - the Studebaker
workers received three million dollars in re-
bates which were kicked back to them from
the B. A. r. E. benevolent Association of
Railroad Employees, or some such title). This
amount covers three-year period, and in one
particular year it was found that 83 per cent
of the amount paid in by Studebaker en-
ployees was paid back to them because the
total cost of administration and benefits had
amounted to II per cent.
The question before the house is this. If it
is true as bona fide representatives from two
insurance companies stated to delegates and
officers of the Auto-Lite Intra Corporation
Council in Syracuse last Saturday, that almost
all companies give such rebate, where does
this rebate 60 if the workers don't receive it?
In other words, WHO gets it?
It is the worker who pays the greatest
cost of his insurance. BY law, the employee is
not permitted to pay more than sixty cents per
thousand dollars of life insurance. I do not see
why he shouldn't get sixty cents worth of re-
bate per thousand too.
The employment manager or his office help
in certain plants (most plants) break their
necks in signing up the employees for insur-
ance that is handled right there in the office
by the company. No one need try to say that
there isn't kckback, because this is simply
not true. The insurance offered under these
company schemes isn't worth tinker's you
knOW-WnaL.
We saw representatives of two insurance
companies falling all over each other bidding
for blanket contracts with the union members
We found that the benefits and the rebates
were many times greater than we had ever
imagined we could get. Result-we woke up
The UAW-CIO is setting up its own in
surance plan. This was decided last Monday by
our International Executive Board. With a
membership of million we will be able to
multiply the benefits and reduce the premiums
at the same time. Forty dollars week, for
fifty-two weeks in the year, in the event of
injury or sickness, with life insurance of at
least 81 900 dollars more than present insur-
ance plans would pay, complete disqualification
and medical coverage for the employees fami-
ly-isn't this worth planning for?
If the insurance companies can become
the richest corporations in the world-on OUR
money-it is time we decided to insure our
selves. Why pay someone else a huge profit to
do what you can do yourself?