[Superman]

Simple. Corporations are our economic furnaces. The theory is that when they heat up, we all get warm. Their health gets a lot of attention. In America, it's all about whether we are creating a favorable climate for them to heat up. When they do, jobs are created, shares are traded, dividends are paid, etc.

The short-lived Chrysler strike was largely about the same thing as the short-lived GM strike. Medical insurance. I've been seeing this over my entire labor relations career. I was the labor statistician for my state. In other words, if I only had a dollar for every collective bargaining agreement I reviewed....... Okay. Medical insurace has been rising in a frightening way. It has trumped all contract negotiations during my entire labor career. Between negotiations, scheduled raises for workers get eaten up by the surprisingly brisk rise in health insurance premiums. Contracts are typically three years. So by the time the union gets back to the bargaining table, its members feel like they have not gotten a raise in three years. Medical insurance premiums have eaten those scheduled raises.

Back to the strikes. In those discussions, basically, the union expected the employer.....the corporation.....to underwrite the rising cost of health care.

I'm okay, generally, with the notion that corporations are our economic furnaces. I still think it's about PEOPLE, but if the warmth comes from the corporations, okay.

Here's my question. If corporations are the economic furnaces on which we rely in America, then shouldn't we expect them to cover costs like this? Or should their profits come at the expense of workers' wages falling, or at least staying flat while inflation reduces our buying power? Who pays? Whose earnings should be protected? And best of all......Why?