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"The union has to do something," says 25-year GM employee Thelma Williams about the automaker's financial options. "I just hope what happens isn't too extreme."Struggles at General Motors
Retirees worry lifelong health care will vanish
Former autoworkers whose benefits are prime target for cuts follow GM's troubles anxiously.
Former GM worker Marland Moreau says employees gave up wage increases in exchange for the promise of a secure future.Related reports
UAW tells GM: Don't cut retiree health care
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Doris Wamsley, a 78-year-old widow in Flint, fears she'll one day have to choose between cable television and prescription drugs.
In Detroit, Thelma Williams lives a restful retirement, hopeful she'll be spared from soaring health care costs.
And in a Cleveland suburb, John Sanderson and his wife keep up a delicate financial balance to manage chronic health problems and still have cash left for camping trips and dinners out.
All are former General Motors Corp. factory workers who are closely watching the automaker with a mix of fear, frustration and loyalty. They're among 365,000 GM retirees for whom the promise of lifelong medical care is slipping away as the company cuts costs after a $1.1 billion first-quarter loss.
"When we hired in, everybody told us we had the best benefits in the country," said Sanderson, 60. "Now, I don't know. I want my benefits, but I won't get anything if my company doesn't survive."
Working for GM once meant health care for life -- the payoff for laboring in sweaty, smoggy plants.
From baby boomers to 80-year-olds, many GM retirees are in failing health. Some haven't worked for decades. Others still have kids in college.
These retirees count on top-of-the-line benefits that outshine those offered by nearly every other American corporation. They include no deductibles or premiums, nominal co-pays and a $250-a-year cap on out-of-pocket costs. GM estimates its obligation to retirees will cost $77 billion, but wants to cut it by 25 percent.That could mean higher out-of-pocket expenses for retirees, who outnumber employees 2-to-1. While some could easily shoulder extra expenses, others say the impact of higher health care costs could range from minor lifestyle changes to forgoing their medications.
Thinking ahead
John Sanderson takes some of the blame for what's becoming an uncertain future for him and his wife of 25 years, Barbara.
"There were smart people who saved their money -- and I was not one of them," said Sanderson, smoking a Marlboro in the living room of his tidy one-story home in the Cleveland suburb of North Ridgeville, Ohio. "It just goes back to being stupid enough to believe we were going to get all the stuff we were promised."
Sanderson worked for 32 years churning out transmissions and, later, steel parts for vehicles such as the Chevy Tahoe SUV and the Malibu sedan before retiring in 2000.
The son of a West Virginia coal miner who died on the job, Sanderson thought little of working 10- to 11-hour shifts in a plant where oily sediment coated his clothing and temperatures sometimes soared above 120 degrees.
He snatched up any overtime he could, and his family reaped the rewards. They took trips, bought nice cars and a 16-foot motorboat. Stowing away cash for later didn't cross his mind.
"In my family," he said, with a trace of a Southern twang, "you work hard and you play hard."
But now, he's paying the price.
Sanderson and his wife live comfortably on his $1,900-a-month pension and another $830 a month from her job at a grocery store. Their two vehicles, a Chevrolet TrailBlazer and a Cavalier, are paid off. They spend $800 a month to pay off refinancing on their home and a recently purchased motor home and about $600 a month on taxes, utilities and cable.
The remaining $1,300 goes toward typical expenses: food, co-pays for prescription drugs and doctor's visits. The cash also finances their favorite pastime -- traveling. The couple camps in southern Ohio, regularly makes it out to state parks and took three grandkids to the Grand Canyon.
"All I ask out of life is to live comfortable," Sanderson said.
Sanderson said he could swing an extra $100 or so a month to keep his current health benefits. But having to pay a large deductible would likely mean major cutbacks and might make it harder for his wife to retire.
Sanderson last week walked through the Parma, Ohio, plant where he spent more than three decades. He wants the company to survive, he said, and is willing to chip in more to offset GM's retiree health costs, which have nearly doubled since 1999. But he's also frustrated by what he sees as inefficiencies in the company.
"They just waste so much money," he said, pointing to workers sitting around an idled machine.
The plant employed 8,000 when Sanderson started in 1968; it's now home to fewer than 1,400 workers. "I owe everything I have to General Motors. But the company could have been run differently."
Pulling her weight
Thelma Williams started working at the GM plant in Warren in 1976, four years after the first woman was hired there and soon after the factory added ladies' rest rooms.
Her husband didn't want her in a factory, but his job as a self-employed builder didn't provide the family of six with any health care coverage.
"I told him, 'We need to do something,'" said Williams, a 69-year-old from Detroit, as she ate lunch with other seniors at the St. Patrick Senior Center in Detroit.
Through a family friend, Williams put in an application with GM and was hired shortly afterward.
Her GM health plan saw the family through nearly three decades of doctor's visits, hospital runs and later the death of her husband and one son.
Retired since 2001, Williams is being treated for a rapid heartbeat, mostly through prescription drugs. With her home on the city's northeast side paid off, she has the freedom to volunteer and get involved in senior sports.
Having to pay a deductible or steep co-pays would add stress to her retirement lifestyle, she said, especially since it comes as utility costs skyrocket and her aging home needs work.
"The union has to do something" to help the company, she said. "I just hope what happens isn't too extreme."
Lifestyle changes
Flint retiree Marland Moreau remembers the inscription on a homemade Father's Day card his 13-year-old grandson gave him last week.
"(It said) 'You're the greatest grandpa in the word,'" recalled Moreau, 82, between euchre games at the United Auto Workers union hall across from his old auto plant. "I like to do a lot for them."
And he can, thanks in part to benefits from 12 years at GM.
Moreau's wife, Audrey, has survived two strokes and has severe arthritis. She requires a walker to get around and must have regular doctor's appointments.
Despite his wife's needs, Moreau pays little for her health care. What's left, for the most part, goes to his four children and his grandkids.
Moreau is a survivor of the Depression and World War II. He was aboard the destroyer USS Callaghan during the 1945 battle at Okinawa, during which Japanese kamikaze fighters struck the ship, sinking it and killing 47 crewmen.
Ready for a quiet life after the Navy, Moreau returned to Michigan and started a 22-year career at Prudential Insurance. At 52, he decided on a career change and went to work at GM.
He now earns pensions from both companies that total $1,224 and come on top of $1,164 a month in Social Security.
Freedom from health care costs means Moreau has enough cash left over to take his seven grandsons to Detroit Red Wings and Flint Generals hockey games. He's paying the mortgage on a house for his daughter, a single mother.
His budget could withstand a hike in health care costs. But it shouldn't have to, he said.
Workers earned the right to the benefits, and gave up wage increases along the way in exchange for the promise of a secure future, he contended.
That safekeeping is part of what prompted Moreau, then 52, to move from the air-conditioned offices of Prudential to the sweaty Flint factory, where the banging of air guns and grinding of wheels on concrete eventually cost him most of his hearing, he said.
"They (GM officials) ought to start at the top and start cutting the high-salaried CEOs," he said. "If it wasn't for the workers on the line, they wouldn't be here."
Stretched thin
Doris Wamsley doesn't have much cash for extras. Her husband, Carl, worked at Flint's Truck and Bus Assembly plant. He died seven years ago and, at the time, Wamsley was certain her future was taken care of.
For years he worked second shift, rarely seeing his wife or three young sons. The reward was supposed to be a good wage and guaranteed security for his family.
Last week, Wamsley played cards with Moreau and about a dozen other retirees and spouses in a bare union hall.
During a break in the game, two women chatted casually about the inevitability that GM retirees will take a hit financially.
"Something has to give," they agreed, moving on to other topics.
A look of concern spreading on her face, Wamsley joined the conversation and asked quietly, "They're going to fight it, aren't they? The union will fight it."
Under GM's health plan, Wamsley has a co-pay of $10.28 for a doctor's visit and $5 each for the eight prescription drugs she takes daily. That's manageable for her.
She gets $500 a month from her husband's pension and another $1,000 a month in Social Security. Meanwhile, her monthly expenses include a $373 car payment, $98 for cable, $208 for home and car insurance and anywhere from $240 to $400 for utilities.
"When someone's on a fixed income, it's hard," said Wamsley, soft-spoken and sporting two homemade buttons with pictures of her grandsons who are in the Marines. "If they cost a lot more," she said of her medications, "I probably wouldn't get all of them."
You can reach Sharon Terlep at (313) 223-4686 or sterlep@detnews.com.
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