Les Jones: What Process for Managing Healthcare?

November 30, 2005

Health Care > What Process for Managing Healthcare?

General Motors' layoffs of 30,000 workers and the bankruptcy last month of the GM spinoff Delphi are widely taken as proof that the days of high-wage, high-benefit manufacturing jobs in the United States are over. But that's not quite the case. An editorial in yesterday's Wall Street Journal (available to subscribers only) pointed out that Japanese and German auto companies employ 60,000 workers in American plants with payroll costs per employee only 8 percent lower than those of the Big Three. But there is one big difference: Few of these 60,000 workers are represented by unions. An appointee in the Clinton White House once remarked to me that no rational person would choose civil service as the way to manage a large organization. I suspect that no rational person would choose a collective bargaining contract as a way to manage a large manufacturing company.

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Comments

The best way for a modern company to stave off union intervention, is to be good managers and treat employees fairly. As long as the foriegn manufacturers in the United States treat their workers fairly, they are unlikely to have a union come in.

Unions probably do contribute to problems for American manufacturers. I think in most cases the union probably came in decades ago in response to conditions which bear no resemblence to the current market. The lesson for successful manufacturers is to continue to treat employees fairly in order to remain competitive.

The lesson for employees is to show greater independance in preparing for the future. The company you count on for benefits and retirement may not even be there. Reduce debt and save.

Posted by: Chris Range at November 30, 2005

No rational person would choose employer-based health insurance and a risk pool fractured into countless private puddles.

Posted by: persimmon at November 30, 2005

Persimmon: I think you've got a decent point. I'd like to see more healthcare portability, particularly with Bluecross Blueshield. They're non-profits that seem to have some special exemptions, so I can't see why they couldn't carryover policies.

And I would like to see the risks spread around a little more.

Posted by: Les Jones at December 01, 2005