Union Benefits

      The American labor movement has been around since 1786, with the first recorded strike by Philadelphia printers protesting a wage cut. Wages were rightfully the first concern of organized labor. During the next hundred years, the American labor union movement, through fits and starts, gradually attained better organization, was finally accepted by government and management alike, and had a greater impact on the labor scene. Wage increases were soon followed by the eight hour day, the forty hour week, and job security. These changes continued with collective bargaining, the right to strike, and much later -- fringe benefits.

     Fringe benefits such as vacations, pension plans, and health insurance came, much, much later in organized labor's quest for a better deal from management. It wasn't until the Roosevelt administrations of the 1930s and ‘40s, and the war effort, that organized labor would manifest the muscle gained from those far too many lean and mean years of hearts and heads broken through strike breaking efforts of misguided management. During those Democratic administrations and legislatures, many laws, favorable to organized labor, were fitfully passed.

     Medical benefits were one of the first of the fringe benefits. Thanks to World War II and the tremendous effort of American labor, union and non, that produced enough war materiel to defeat the Axis powers, unions became strong enough to effect costly changes for the benefit of their members. Unions, historically, have fought for any additional fringe benefits for their dues paying members. To many people, the feeling is the pendulum has now swung too far in the opposite direction. The tails of labor unions are now wagging, many times into bankruptcy, the dogs of American business.

     Union negotiators, it is supposed, strive and bargain for the best interests of their dues paying members. Unfortunately, the health (medical and dental) benefits achieved turn out to be less than beneficial to those innocent and needful members. Maybe the bargaining agents try to give too much to their members to make them appear more member-oriented and ensure their reelection. Maybe the unions, in conjunction with management, would be better off organizing a joint effort with regard to dental benefits. With the recently strained relations between organized labor and management, now might be the ideal time to join forces and offer a dental benefit that will not bankrupt management, yet will give union members a benefit they would be proud of and one that is truly of benefit to them.

     Some union benefit plan administrators take the prejudiced and populist position that dentists should accept whatever fees they, who never went to dental school or possibly, even college, decide are proper and passable. Or, possibly more to the point, the union dental plans benefit from and exploit a depressed economy and can therefore exact better deals from dentists when and where there is a surplus of them. For that very reason, these low priced union plans do not exist in smaller cities or rural areas where that strong competition for patients does not exist between dentists. In those smaller cities, union strength also does not exist. There, workers are forced to patronize local dentists and are a prisoner of their arbitrary fees. The smaller the city, the easier it is for dentists to collude and set up a capricious fee schedule beneficial to them alone.

     When the union plan demands that dentists accept fees as low or lower than Medicaid, who can expect the dentistry performed to be any better? Who can expect the dental office and instruments to be any cleaner? Who can expect the dental examinations and treatment plans or diagnoses to be any more thorough and patient related? You get what you pay for. However, you don't think for one moment the union executives go to those low fee offices. And if they do, the red carpet is rolled out for them, the instruments are sterilized and the boss washes his hands before he dons the latex examination gloves. And he smiles while he, and only he, treats those overpaid union executive. No 30%ers, down on their luck dentists, or recent graduates, for the union VIPs.

     The crime is in intimating to their membership that the low fees the union bargained for and agreed to pay for will get their members the same quality of care the union executives get from their dentist. Can you imagine the union presidents and other high level union executives going to a Metropolitan Dental, mentioned in an earlier chapter, for their dental treatment? Neither can they. They want the best dental care they can get. And if it will cost extra dollars to get it, they dig into their union's deep pockets and come up with it. After all, it is a tax deductible business expense.

     You, the dues paying union member, do not have pockets as deep, but you have the same desire and aspirations for quality dental care. What to do? Avoid those dental offices that advertise they will accept your ludicrous union plan benefit fee schedule as full payment. Those owner dentists are well aware of how low those schedules are and don't care, because they are not doing the dentistry. Their low paid employee dentists are doing it, and on an even lower 30% commission basis. Those entrepreneurial dentists are not goodie-two-shoes doing a Boy Scout good deed. They are grabbing whatever they can and your dental health and benefit be damned. All that matters is the check received from your union treasurer for the questionable services rendered.

     Again, no accountability. Your union doesn't check for quality, for cleanliness, for anything. Your union only acts when a member complains. And then it's usually a question of how powerful the complainant is versus how much clout and finesse the entrepreneurial dentist has with the union. Or, how much money is passed into the right hands.