On Friday, February 5, The House Committee on Labor and Public Employment will hold a hearing at 9:30 am in conference room 309 on expanding the rights of employees to negotiate benefits. This legislation is needed to ensure that benefits are directly negotiable with public employers and the topics may include benefits, benefit plan, and employer contributions. This means that the exclusive bargaining representative can fully engage in negotiations that the current EUTF statute has prohibited. For faculty this means more direct influence over your total compensation and how wage and benefits are balanced to take better advantage of the non-taxable nature of health care benefits. This also means greater stability in benefit plans and the contribution responsibility of the employer.

The proposal to reform EUTF advanced by the public sector unions will be heard on Friday, February 5, at 9:30 am in Capital Room 016. This proposal seeks to significantly change the operations of the EUTF to ensure that employees and their families are the primary focus of benefit plans. As beneficiaries their interests must be paramount in the funding and benefit decisions made by the EUTF Board of Trustees. The Board of Trustees is expanded from 10 to 12 trustees with unions and employers each given 6 representatives. Public sector unions would appoint their respective Trustee who serve at the discretion of the appointing union. Any exclusive bargaining representative will be allowed to negotiate their own benefit plan thus allowing employees to have a greater say in plan choice and how premium dollars are spent. If passed, this legislation would return to employees a greater voice in establishing health care benefits with greater protections for plan beneficiaries who will no longer be subject to the vagaries of the Governor or employers.