Teamsters local loses fight to withdraw from state plan

Friday, Feb. 6, 2004 | 9:24 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A Teamsters Union local has lost again in its battle since 1999 to pull its members out of the state health insurance plan.

The board of directors of the state Public Employees Benefit Program Thursday refused to reconsider its prior decision to deny the application of Teamsters Local 14 to permit its state employee members to leave and join the health insurance program of the union.

"They are thumbing their nose at the law," Gary Wolff, business representative for the union, said after the vote. "We're going to court" to try to overturn the decision of the board.

The program covers 22,000 government workers with a total membership of 45,000. This includes state workers, dependents, retirees and some local governments.

The Teamsters local represents mostly Nevada Highway Patrol troopers and some other law enforcement officers in state government and would take 337 employees out of the system.

Wolff and Teamsters attorney Adam Segal of Las Vegas argued that the union has complied with the law.

Aon Consulting, the financial consultant to the board, said the withdrawal would have an impact of $720,000 a year on the system and would cost the remaining members 10 cents a month. The company said that impact is less than 0.05 percent.

The 1999 law gives the benefit board discretion to decide if a group should be allowed to withdraw. But a group is prohibited from pulling out if the impact is 5 percent or more.

Board member Bill Anderson, an economist for the state, said state workers did not get a pay raise last year and their retirement premium was increased. There's a lot of hardship on state workers, he said in opposing the withdrawal.

But board member Christopher Campbell said the Teamsters Union has found a way to provide insurance at lower cost for its members.

"It is not right to penalize the Teamsters for the right to find more cost-effective insurance," he said.

Campbell was joined by J. Angus MacEachern -- both are from Las Vegas -- in voting for the pull-out. They were the only two of the nine members who voted to overturn the previous vote.

The state pays a monthly premium of $495 per employee, and employees pick up the cost for their dependents. The premium rises to $558 next fiscal year.

To prevent the program from going into the red, the insurance board reduced benefits starting last July.

If the Teamsters Union were allowed to leave, the state would send the premiums along with the members to the union insurance plan.