UPS sent a memo to its employees informing them that they chose to remove 15,000 spouses of non-union employees from its healthcare coverage. Like many corporations these days, UPS is blaming this money grab on Obamacare.
Warning, the above link is to a local Fox station in Texas which of course blames Obama. Nearly all the articles in mainstream media, including NYT, Bloomberg, and the SF Chronicle, include a business "expert" (read apologist) who talks about why this is OK and these poor, poor corporations have no choice because Obama. Interestingly, in all three articles, the "expert" is from a big corporate consulting firm called Mercer. Obvious corporate spin is obvious. Corporate media has been very successful in treating huge stories in the world of labor as "ho-hum who cares" back-page space fillers when they should be front page.
Also note that UPS's thousands of union employees are exempt from this. This is another example of why workers need unions now more than ever. Corporations with deep pockets have carte blanche to take benefits from workers who earned them unless they have to power to collectively bargain.
As with other companies who are slashing employee benefits, pay, and hours, I will no longer use UPS for my Ebay transactions and other things. They blame Obama but the real monster here is out-of-control greed. Our paychecks are getting smaller and the cost of living keeps rising. Worker pay stays low and corporate profits skyrocket. I hope most folks can look through the spin and see that.
Full text of the memo (it's long and tedious corporatespeak, with the details buried.)
Update: There's already a much better diary about this. But I'll leave this one up because not enough attention is being paid to matters that affect American workers.