CNN - Bernie Sanders: Pay your workers better. Warren Buffett: That's not my job
Warren Buffett, the ninth-richest person on the planet, says it's not up to him to settle a strike by 450 steelworkers at a company he owns.
Sen. Bernie Sanders wrote a letter to the Berkshire Hathaway CEO, requesting that he intervene in a United Steelworkers union strike at the Special Metals plant in Huntington, West Virginia. They've been on strike for three months. Special Metals is a unit of Precision Castparts, which is owned by Buffett's Berkshire.
It said the company wants to raise the cost of health coverage for workers from $275 a month to $1,000. And it reduced vacation time they have already accrued.
Sanders called the offer "outrageous and insulting."
But Buffett responded with a letter quoting Berkshire's annual financial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which tells investors that the management of its different companies is left up to the executives at each subsidiary -- not Berkshire itself (or Buffett).
"Our companies deal individually with their own labor and personnel decisions (except for the selection of the CEO)," he said in his response to Sanders, which was released by Sanders' office. "I'm passing along your letter to the CEO of Precision Castparts, but making no recommendations to him as to any action. He is responsible for his business."
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/12/31/...warren-buffett-steelworkers-strike/index.html
My comment/reaction:
Tbh: the health cost increase is a lot. (According to the article $275 to $1,000) [sheeeesh!] I know health care increased but by that much. idk
One thing I have to say if I worked there is to look somewhere else. If the company is going to nickel and dime or charge you a lot for health insurance. I would possibly look around and move jobs. In this market probably higher pay. (the American way, make more money.)