Unions safeguard health benefits

The Boston Globe reports:

It was the spring of 2009, and Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, staring at a $1 million shortfall for her city, had an idea: What if she could get employees to pay more for their health care?

Salem had already trimmed 18 positions since 2008, partly to help offset rising municipal health care costs, and Driscoll offered the city’s eight unions a deal: No further layoffs if they agreed to raise, from $5 to $15, certain copayments. She even pledged to pay the first five higher copayments for every worker.

“To my mind, it was a no-brainer,’’ Driscoll said. “But we got turned down by all eight unions. One of them, the police, wouldn’t even discuss it.’’

It is a familiar lament. Mayors, city and town leaders, and state officials, including Governor Deval Patrick, have launched repeated efforts to rein in the expense of providing health care to municipal workers, retirees, and elected officials.

But organized labor, fiercely protective of its members, has largely refused to budge, resisting local efforts to transfer more health care costs to workers and move communities onto the state’s health care plan. State lawmakers have shown little appetite for forcing an overhaul of the system.

Special people.