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Welcome to the America's Workforce Radio Podcast, the flagship production of the American Workers' Radio and Podcast Network, where organized labor and its never-ending fight to protect the rights of the American worker come first.
Now presented by LIUNA, Laborers' International Union of North America, here's your host, Ed Flash Farrance.
The AFL-CIO on Tuesday's election.Liz Shuler on what organized labor can expect.Meanwhile, more unions speaking out.And today on the show, what's going to happen with the National Labor Relations Board?
And we check in with the National Labor Office at Blue Cross and Blue Shield.Welcome to the Friday, November 8th edition of America's Workforce, where we're available on at least five platforms, including Apple Podcasts,
YouTube, iHeartRadio, Spotify, and Pandora.We have a total of three guests on the show today.In the first couple of segments, we're going to check in with Andrew Strom.Andrew, no stranger to America's workforce.
He serves as Associate General Counsel of the Service Employees International Union, big union in New York City.That would be local 32BJ.Now, he's not speaking on behalf of his union.
He is a contributor to the On Labor blog, which is a service of the Harvard Law School.This is a great blog.When you get an opportunity, check it out, onlabor.org is the website.And with the election of Donald Trump as our next president,
A lot of people in organized labor are wondering what's going to happen with unions.In fact, if you know anything about Project 2025, well, that's a document that wants to really, really decimate unions.I'm sure we'll talk about that as well.
But the National Labor Relations Board, which has been very union friendly under the Biden-Harris administration, is going to change.It's going to change.And you may recall when Donald Trump was president, when he was number 45,
He put union busters on that labor board and it was not good.It was not good.And we saw a lot of organizing actually go down rulings against unions.So we're going to see the same thing.What about funding for the National Labor Relations Board?
That's another thing. In addition to the National Labor Relations Board, Andrew is also going to talk about the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where a lot of court decisions go because they are not what you call union-friendly.
It's a very conservative group of justices there.And unfortunately, Because of the way of our court system is set up, a lot of decisions go there and get unfavorable rulings.
And this has been continuing for quite some time, so Andrew will update us on that.Later in the show, we're going to check in with two individuals from the National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield.First, Marilee Logue.
Marilee is the executive director of the National Labor Office, and she'll be joined by David Yoder, David is the senior vice president of the Federal Employee Program, better known as FEP at Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
He's going to talk about how Blue Cross and Blue Shield has been providing health care coverage to the federal employee workforce.Currently, they cover more than five and a half million federal employees, retirees and families across the U.S.as well.
as overseas.And by the way, David served in the U.S.Navy, where he was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal for his work on pharmacy automation systems.What an impressive background.
So Marilee Logue and David Yoder will be joining us later on the show here on America's Workforce. Now, a brief look into the world of labor.This segment brought to you by Boyd Watterson Asset Management.
$17 billion in assets under advisement since 1928.BoydWaterson.com is their website. Well, we're getting a lot more comments on what happened at the polls on Tuesday.
I'm going to start off with Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, and this is what she posted.Presidential administrations change, but the labor movement's values do not. We stand for the freedom to organize and for the right to collectively bargain.
We stand for solidarity, the kind that is built when working people stand together to take on the biggest, richest bosses and the most powerful extremist politicians.Most importantly, we know how to fight back when anyone comes after our freedoms.
Liz Shuler goes on saying, this result, Republican nominee Donald Trump's victory, is a blow for every worker who depends on our elected leaders to fight for our jobs, our unions, and our contracts.
We organized for months to produce a nearly 17-point advantage for Vice President Kamala Harris with union members, but
It is clear the economic struggle of working class people are facing is causing real pain and neither party has sufficiently addressed it.Now, now we are faced with the reality of a second Donald Trump term.
The Project 2025 agenda promises to dismantle labor unions because we are a pillar of democracy and a check on power.We've seen assaults on our fundamental rights before.
In the days, months, and the years ahead, labor's task will be to defend working people when it happens again.The labor movement gives voice and clarity to the struggles of working people.That's what we do and what we've always done.
Every workplace we organize is a victory for democracy. Every contract we bargain for is a step toward a fairer economy.Every strike is a lesson for rich bosses that they cannot keep the working class down.No one, not Donald Trump or J.D.
Vance, nor any one CEO can stop solidarity. Organized labor is the path forward.In unions, people have power to build a stable foundation for themselves and their families.To say it's better in a union is not simply a slogan.
It's the way to level the playing field and create a path to economic security for every working person.The nearly 13 million union members of the AFL-CIO will not be divided, and we won't back down.
We will be there for each other and we will fight every step of the way for every worker in this country, no matter who sits in the Oval Office.Powerful words from Liz Shuler, President of the AFL-CIO. We have more comments from various unions.
I'm going to start off with Gwen Mills from Unite here.She says, elections come and go.We are engaged in the long struggle to build a working class movement that can make the United States what it should be.
We endured hate, division, and relentless attacks on workers.We are a fighting union and do not hesitate when we are under attack.We stand up, we stand up together, and we fight back.
Randy Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, she said, we saw fear and anger win her union and three other big public workers unions, the National Education Association, the service employees, and AFSCME staged a joint last weekend coast-to-coast blitz for Harris.
It was part of a record union get-out-the-vote effort.And this is what Randy said.
The bottom line for most people who voted, and we saw many of them as we crisscrossed the country, was who will help us improve our lives, the lives of our families and our communities?We believed it was Kamala Harris.
Well, more people believe it was Donald Trump. How about Everett Kelley?
Now, Everett Kelley is the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, and this is a union that's really, really scared right now because of what Trump said, and this is all contained in Project 2025, the attack on federal workers.
He wants to get rid of at least 50,000 federal workers.Everett says federal employees are sworn to uphold the law and the Constitution, and they will continue to do their jobs regardless of who sits in the White House.
Make no mistake, our union will not stand by and let any political leader, regardless of their affiliation, run roughshod over the Constitution and our laws.
During President Trump's first term, his administration attempted to gut many of our negotiated union contracts, downsize and relocate federal agencies at great disruption, and it was a huge cost to taxpayers, mind you. And one more here.
This is from Dave McCall, president of the United Steelworkers.Dave said the United Steelworkers will respect and honor the electoral process and the Constitution of the United States.
One of the great tragedies of this grueling election season has been the way in which key figures sought to divide working Americans against each other. be it along the lines of gender, race, occupation, or country of origin.
Now, more than ever, Americans must come together for the benefit of our representative democracy.
Dave McCollum goes on to say, we must defend historic victories in health care, infrastructure, and industrial policy, and we will not rest until they reach their full potential. Just a handful of comments.I'm sure there's many, many more to come.
All right, we're going to take a quick break.When we come back, what's going to happen to the National Labor Relations Board?That story right after this on America's Workforce.
You're listening to America's Workforce with Ed Flash Ferencz.
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Now, back to Ed Flash Farrance with America's Workforce.
And don't forget, you can check us out on Facebook or follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter.That would be a WF Union podcast, a WF Union podcast.By the way, this next segment brought to you in part by the United Labor Agency.
ULAgency.org is a website.If you miss our show with Dave Meganhart that was posted two days ago, you could check it out. at awfpodcast.com.
He was talking about the election and also the history of the ULA and how it's been helping workers find better jobs.I'll tell you that.And I'll tell you, there's going to be a lot of jobs up for grabs coming up here.Let's go to line number one.
Welcome our featured guest, Andrew Strom. Andrew is a contributor to the On Labor blog, which is a service of the Harvard Law School, frequent contributor to America's workforce.
He also serves as an associate general counsel of Service Employees International, local 32BJ.Now, he's not speaking on their behalf.
Today, we're going to talk about the future of the National Labor Relations Board, which has seen a lot of activity under the Biden-Harris administration.
And Andrew, I got a feeling here a lot of that activity, which was good activity for unions, is pretty much going to grind to a halt.Maybe you can explain.
We got five members on that board, and I don't know who's up, but the president gets an opportunity here when that term is up to appoint somebody.And the last time around, He put union busters on the NLRB.
So let's take a look at what he did and what he may do.Andrew, it's all yours.
OK, well, so the first thing is that the NLRB is sort of has these two arms.It has this sort of prosecutorial arm and then it has the sort of quasi judicial arm.Right.So the five board members, you know, more or less are acting like judges.
And, you know, they're hearing the cases.But more important are the hundreds of lawyers around the country who are bringing the cases.And the person who oversees that is called the general counsel.
And that's really the most powerful position at the NLRB, because that's the person who decides which cases get brought.
Because the NLRB board members themselves, although they can decide some issues, maybe we'll talk about in a minute, that aren't directly before them, but they don't get to pick their cases.It's not like the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has all these people asking them, here my case, here this case, here that case, and that's a very powerful part of the Supreme Court's powers to just pick and choose which cases it hears.
But with the MRB, it's really this General Counsel.And you really just couldn't have a sharper contrast between the General Counsel that Biden appointed and the general counsel that Trump appointed.
And so Donald Trump's general counsel was the guy who spent his entire career representing bosses.And I was just looking up, you know, because he's at a law firm now, and I was looking up his website, you know, where he has his bio.
And this is kind of all you need to know about him.It's a pretty short bio that he lists.And he lists basically two main things on that bio.
One is that he says he was the lead counsel for Ronald Reagan during the Patco strike, the air traffic controller strike in 1981.And that's notorious to anyone who was around at that time as this sort of turning point in the labor movement.
these air traffic controllers went on strike.Maybe some of your younger listeners don't know about this story.I hope they would, right?The air traffic controllers went on strike and Reagan just fired them all.
And so he has, he's bragging about his, you know, bio that he was the counsel for Reagan during that time.And the other thing he brags about on that website is that he represented an employer association during a 100 day lockout.
And so that's kind of who he is.And when he was at the LRB, he really tried to make the agency into an agency that went after unions.
At some point, he issued a memo suggesting that employers would violate the National Labor Relations Act if they entered into voluntary recognition agreements with unions.I mean, he was just really very sort of turned the agency on its head.
And in fact, he was so notorious that on day one, President Biden fired him.And that hadn't been done before because previously, you know, the general counsels have a term and it's a five-year term.
And maybe it's a four-year, it's either a four-year or five-year term, but it's, you know, it hadn't been done before.But people convinced President Biden that he could do it, and he did it.
And he appointed Jennifer Abruzzo, who spent most of her career at the agency, and who is very committed to enforcing worker rights.
And she's, you know, issued sort of memo after memo saying, hey, not only should we be, you know, more aggressively enforcing things the way they are, but we should be trying to push the law in new ways.
So, I mean, and I think because, you know, Biden set that precedent of firing Peter Robb on day one, you know, it seems very likely because, you know, that's kind of the way Trump operates.
It's kind of tit for tat, is he's very likely, you know, people are anticipating he's going to fire Jennifer Abruzzo, you know, if not on day one, pretty close to it.And so, you know, as far as the national relations
I mean, I think one of the things that, you know, is kind of sad is, you know, I think a lot of working people, you know, because they're frustrated by high prices or inflation, you know, sort of bought into this notion that, oh,
things will get better, you know, or I don't know what they thought exactly.But there was an article I was reading in the New Yorker magazine where Sean McGarvey, who was the president of the Building Trades Union, was talking about Trump.
And in January, January 23rd, 2017, the Building Trades, some of the Building Trades Union leaders had a meeting with Trump at the White House.And they walked out of that meeting and they, he made the following statement.
He said, we just had probably the most incredible meeting of our careers with the president and the vice president.The respect the president showed us, and he shows it to us, he shows it to 3 million of our members, was nothing short of incredible.
And he just was totally snowed by Trump.And now he says, well, I mean, just before the election, he's like, well, Trump never did anything he was going to do.He never did infrastructure.
His National Labor Relations Board was laden with anti-union ideologues.He never fixed pensions, pretty much you name it.The first thing was all the things he was going to do.And then we had four years of a knife fight in the phone booth.
And I think that there's no reason to think, you know, Trump's new right-hand man is Elon Musk, who has made his views on unions very clear.You know, Trump and Musk got together, and Musk bragged about firing workers who tried to organize.
And, you know, we're going to go back to that.I mean, I was looking back, my on-paper blog post, which anybody can go look at, throughout the Trump years,
you know, it was sort of one post after another of how the NLRB was taking away workers' rights.You know, it was telling people, you know, making it harder for workers to win strikes.
There was a case where Walmart, where they said, if you go out on one short strike, you can never go out on another strike again.So workers can't say, you know, basically workers have a choice of you can have an open ended strike.
which most workers can't afford to go out on an open-ended strike.So a lot of unions over the years have realized, let's sort of send a message, right?We're going to go out on a two-day strike.
We're going to go out on a three-day strike, and we'll see if that generates any movement from the employer, if that gets us what we want.
And the NYP said in this Walmart case, without really any coherent reasoning, other than that we want the bosses to win, They said, well, if you go out on a second strike, you've lost the protections of the National Labor Relations Act.
And not only if you go out on a second strike, but if you announce that you have a plan to go out on a second strike, then your first strike becomes unprotected.And so, you know, just another, taking away another weapon from the workers.
they made it harder for workers to organize by saying that they had to organize only in the largest possible bargaining units.That you have to organize, if there's a plant with 3,000 workers, you have to organize all 3,000 of them.
You can't have subsections of that plant, even though those might have been, you know, traditionally, you know, have very distinct responsibilities and very distinct qualifications for certain jobs.
And, you know, for decades people have been allowed to do that.
I mean, I could go on and on about all of the different, you know, they said that they made it harder to win cases where workers were fired by saying that companies couldn't, that the LRB couldn't take into account anti-union statements to prove
that employers had bad motives when they fired people, right?
So in other words, if you said, if the boss, you know, said about worker organizing that they felt like, you know, they had, were given a knife in the back, and then they went out and fired somebody, you know, that you couldn't use that as evidence that, well, maybe the firing was illegal because they had shown themselves to be anti-union.
I mean, it was just like sort of one after another.And then, I mean, just getting back to the thing I was saying at the outset about the NLRB can't pick and choose its cases.
I mean, they would just reach out and decide issues that weren't before them. You know, so they would be presented with a case and they were so eager.
They basically had a checklist where every decision, every significant decision that was issued during the Obama years, they just, it was like they were working off of a checklist, like we have to overturn each of them.
And they decided not even to wait until the issues were properly presented before them.
They just, you know, sort of would reach out and use a case, you know, that raised one issue and say, oh, well, we're going to issue, you know, we're going to announce a broad rule that applies, you know, in other situations as well.
It sounds like the decisions that came down during the Biden-Harris administration, many of those could be reversed under the new administration then because that's what happened before.Is that what I'm hearing?
Yeah, that's exactly what's happening.And it's unfortunate because you know, we haven't really even gotten the full benefit of these decisions.
And, you know, now we're getting to this world where it's like a seesaw and everybody, every four years, people's rights are sort of going back and forth.
And I think that it is really unfortunate because I think Trump and Vance ran saying that they were sort of friends of workers and they wanted, you know, the Republicans want to be the working man's party, not the working women's party, I don't think.
They, you know, keep talking about that.There's nothing in their records that would suggest in any way, shape, or form that they really care about protecting the right to organize.
And I think we very much expect, you know, a total rollback of any good decisions that have come out of the NLRB over the last few years.
Okay, Andrew, I got to take a quick break.Andrew Strom joining us, giving us a little commentary on what's going to happen here with the National Labor Relations Board.
We're going to talk about the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, very conservative court where a lot of labor decisions go for good reason, because they're on the side of business.We'll talk about that next.
Later in the show, we're going to check in with the National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield.Back in a few minutes, you're listening to America's Workforce.
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Let's go back to our live line, rejoin Andrew Strom, contributor to the On Labor blog, a service of the Harvard Law School.Spent a long time, almost three decades on labor law.
And we're talking about the National Labor Relations Board, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.You know, I have another question here on the NLRB.You mentioned in the first segment
that like Biden, Biden fired a union buster that was the general counsel that Trump appointed when Biden took office.Most likely he's going to fire Jennifer Abruzzo. Now, can he dump the entire board?
I mean, these people have terms and there's some that are from Democratic administrations, some from Republican administrations.I get it.Now, what do you think is going to happen?Because Trump's got an agenda here.He's not friendly to unions.
His administration was not friendly the first time.He's going to be more unfriendly this time.What's your take on that?What do you think is going to happen here?
Well, I mean, in terms of trying to fire the board members, that's one of the issues that, you know, sort of the right wing has latched on to is this idea that all of these agencies, you know, that have term where the heads of the agencies have terms that the
their theory of the Constitution is that the president has to have the power to be able to remove any executive official.
And so there have been these challenges saying that the structure of the NLRB is unconstitutional because these board members have these terms and they, you know, and so there's a question about whether they can be removed or not.
And they've actually, the same argument they've extended to the administrative law judges, which is even crazier because
you know, the administrative law judges or civil service protections, by the way, is also something that, um, Trump and Elon Musk have talked about getting doing away with, um, is any kind of civil service protection, um, for federal employees.
Uh, you know, so they have this kind of, you know, this really sort of scary vision where anyone who works in the federal government, uh, you know, should be subject to being fired by the president at any time.
which would make it a lot harder for people to do their jobs and would certainly be worrisome to people. Wow.
Okay.Fasten your seatbelt.That's all I can say.Let's talk about the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.You and I have had this discussion in previous podcasts, and I'm seeing more and more cases go down there.This is a very conservative court.
And here's what I don't understand.It's almost like what they call a judge shopping.This is court shopping. So if you have a business and you've got a union issue going on, maybe, uh, maybe they're, they're trying to organize.
You don't like what's going on.And we see a lot of that in America.We'll probably see more of that in the next four years.
They can just say, okay, we have a decision, we're going to get to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to make sure that that decision goes in our favor?Is that what happens here?And it just doesn't seem right to me.
But maybe you can explain the process to us.
The way the federal court system is set up, is in every state, there are district courts.And the district courts are the trial courts.And each state has its own, at least one district.Bigger states have multiple districts.
And then the next level is there are 12 circuit courts around the country.And they're just divided geographically.And the Fifth Circuit covers Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. In theory, they only hear cases from those three states.
The National Labor Relations Act has what's called a venue provision.So venue is the term that lawyers use for where a case is brought.
And the venue provision in the National Labor Relations Act says that a party that is seeking review of an LRB decision can seek review either in the D.C.circuit, which is historically the
place that hears most of these cases involving federal agencies, or they can seek review in any circuit where they do business.So if you're a national company, you can bring your case anywhere across the country.
Traditionally, people bring these cases you know, where they arise, or maybe where the company is headquartered.
But now, with the Fifth Circuit sort of signaling how virulently anti-union they are, and how willing they are to sort of step out on a limb, more and more employers are taking cases, like Amazon is doing this, a case that arised in New York City, and saying, oh, well, we're going to bring our case in the Fifth Circuit, the Fifth Circuit's headquarter in New Orleans.
So yeah, so they're just, you know, it's sort of in the signal for employers that if you wanna play hardball, you go to the Fifth Circuit.
And the Fifth Circuit, you know, they have basically, I mean, most of the judges are sort of, there aren't really any liberal judges on the Fifth Circuit.You know, there are sort of centrist judges and then far right judges.
And there are 17 active judges on the Fifth Circuit and there are nine of them who are really super far right and very aggressive.
And those include six Trump appointees and as well as three Republican appointees from earlier presidents, which I think is an important point for people to understand, which is that Trump's
Judges are, you know, sort of more Trump-like, you know, in some of their rhetoric.But a lot of Republican appointees, I mean, and in previous years, Republican presidents had more of a mix of judges.
I mean, some were more institutionalist, more centrist.But they also, you know, George W. Bush appointed a fair number of far-right ideologues himself.
But just to give people a flavor of what happens, there was a case involving Tesla that was decided a couple of weeks ago. And one of the things about the courts of appeals is that they ordinarily decide cases in three judge panels, right?
So you have these 17 judges, but the 17 judges don't hear every case, right?Each case gets assigned randomly to a three judge panel.And, you know, the theory is supposed to be that
The case gets assigned to that three-judge panel, and sometimes you get a good panel, sometimes you get a bad panel, but that's pretty much the end of the story.
But the Fifth Circuit, these nine far-right judges on the Fifth Circuit, more and more, if they don't like the outcome of one of these three-judge panels, they have the ability to what's called take the case and bonk.
which is basically all 17 judges.So that's what they've been doing.They've been reaching out.
And anytime you happen to get an okay opinion out of a three-judge panel in the Fifth Circuit, these nine judges then rush in and say, no, no, no, we're going to rehear that case.
And that's what happened in this Tesla case where Elon Musk had issued some tweet Why pay union dues and give up stock options for nothing?
And so workers filed an unfair tax charge saying that's a threat.You know, it seems a pretty obvious threat, right?That people have stock options.If you organize, we're going to take away your stock options.And
And the NLRB found that it was a threat.And the NLRB ordered Musk to take down that tweet.But that's what they ordered.And so these nine judges said, well, they can't order that.
Without really sort of a very short opinion, they just said, well, the First Amendment doesn't allow the government to remove speech.
And they don't really say what would be an acceptable way to deal with it, but it sort of suggests that once you issue some tweet, it becomes immune because there's no power for the government to say, take down your tweet.
And that's just one of so many things that they've done in recent years.I mean, there's really this notion that
Three judges now in the Fifth Circuit, as I talked about I think the last time I was on, have said that the National Labor Relations Act itself is unconstitutional.
And it seems quite likely that these nine judges on the Fifth Circuit are going to agree with that.And that's the kind of thing where you know, people get frustrated and people say like, you know, Biden didn't do anything.
You know, and it's not, you know, it's not just the Fifth Circuit either.I mean, the Fifth Circuit is the worst of the worst.
Well, Andrew, I'll tell you what, we're just about out of time here, but this is just another example of the broken labor law in this country.And I have to share with you, I work in the justice system in Cleveland and one of my
Judges who has since retired said, you know what?I don't want to judge on the right and I don't want to judge on the left.I want somebody in the middle. that can make a decision.That's where the fairness is.So you can judge both sides.
And we're not seeing that.We're not seeing that in America today.Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today.Andrew Strom, a contributor to the On Labor blog, a service of the Harvard Law School.Do check out onlabor.org.You take care.
I'm sure there'll be plenty more to talk about.Okay, brother?Okay.Good talking to you. All right, we're going to take a quick break.
When we come back, we're going to check in with the National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield and talk about health benefits for federal employees.That story right after this.
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Now, back to America's workforce.Here's Ed Flash Farrans.
And don't forget, you can check us out on Facebook or follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter.That would be a WF Union podcast, a WF Union podcast.Well, I am joined once again by Marilee Logue.
And for those who don't know, Marilee is the executive director of the National Labor Office at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, where she oversees the National Labor Office.Marilee, welcome back to America's Workforce.
Hi, Flash.Thanks for having me back.And with me today, I have David Yoder.He's the senior vice president of the Federal Employee Program, also known as FEP, at Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.
Given its open enrollment time for the federal employees, I thought it was a good idea to have him join me today.
Absolutely.And please join me in welcoming Mr. David Yoder to the show.And before David's current position, I might add, He held several leadership roles in the Federal Employee Program and served six and a half years of active duty in the U.S.
Navy, where he was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal for his work on pharmacy automation systems.So, David Yoder, welcome to America's Workforce. Well, hello, Flash, and thank you.
Looking forward to the discussion.
And thank you for your service to our country, I might add.Well, I'm excited to have you here because today we'll be discussing the Federal Employee Program and what the association is doing for federal employees, for retirees and their families.
So, David, If you don't mind, could you start us off by telling us what FEP is and its background?Go ahead.Yep, sure, Flash.
I'd be happy to do so.So for about 60 years, Blue Cross Blue Shield has been providing health care coverage to the federal employee workforce. So today we cover about 5.5 million federal employees, retirees, and their families across the U.S.
and overseas.We offer benefits and coverage that include access to our provider network, meaning they have access to more doctors, hospitals, and specialists than any other provider option.
Oh, that is awesome.Now, clearly you're helping a lot of people.Question here, is there anything that Blue Cross and Blue Shield is doing with FVP that makes you stand out?
Well, you know, Flash, really our members' well-being is what comes first for us.So we do offer, you know, nationwide and worldwide coverage.Our members have access to that strong provider network I referenced before.
We also have programs and tools to simplify the health care experience, an incentive program, and we've got innovative tools and resources.And that's just the beginning.
Everything we have to offer is what allows us to have a ninety nine percent of our members stay with us every year.
Ninety nine percent.That's that's an amazing statistic.Clearly, there is amazing work being done here, David, when and how Do people enroll in FEP?
Well, this year, open season starts on Monday, November the 11th and ends on Monday, December the 9th.So to enroll, someone must use their agency's preferred method.
So if you have one more information, it's available on our website at FEPblue.org forward slash enroll.
David, I heard that a new act was established that positively impacts postal workers.Could you tell everybody more about that?
Oh, absolutely, Merilee.It's called the Postal Service Reform Act.It helped establish the Postal Service's Health Benefits Program, also referred to as the PSHB.
It's going to provide coverage through a new marketplace to eligible USPS employees, retirees, and their family members starting on January 1st of 2025. FEP was approved to participate in the PSHB program.
So, in 2025, we will be offering similar health insurance coverage to federal and USPS employees and retirees, just as we do today under the current marketplace.
Well, since USPS workers are new to this program, the FEP program, are there any specific details that you think would be beneficial for them to know about?
Uh, you bet so it's important for people to know that open enrollment dates are the same dates that I just mentioned And they will use their agencies their individual agency.
They work for preferred method to enroll besides that postal service employees and retirees should know that they will be Automatically enrolled in the pshb version of their current health plan.So during open season
in the new Postal Services Health Benefits System, postal employees and retirees can make changes to their benefits.They can enroll in a plan, cancel a plan, or change their plan.They can also decide about their dental and vision coverage.
They can keep the same coverage or enroll in our dental and vision plans if they don't already have coverage.
So, David, will the coverage options be the same for both federal employees and the USPS workers?
Yes.So, for anyone enrolling in FEP, they will have the opportunity to choose versions of FEP Blue Focus, FEP Blue Basic, and FEP Blue Standard.
And members will have access to the same provider network, which includes over 2 million doctors and hospitals.
But if someone has FEP coverage already and wants to take the PSHB version of the same health insurance plan in 2025, they can do that while keeping their same doctors.
Wow, David, this is all great information.Does the Postal Service Reform Act impact anyone enrolled in or eligible for Medicare?
That's a great question because that's a population.We really like to concentrate on so the postal services reform act required certain medicare eligible usps retirees to enroll in medicare part b To maintain their pshb coverage in retirement
FEP and Medicare benefits will work together to provide health insurance coverage.For retirees who have Medicare and Blue Cross and Blue Shield FEP, Medicare will pay your eligible claims first, and then FEP will pay the remainder.
Now, there are a few requirements for USPS retirees only.Those requirements are a bit more particular when you're retiring and what coverage someone may have.
So, for example, if you are retired as of December 31st, 2024, and you have Medicare Part B, you must continue to keep it in order to continue your PSHB coverage.
If anyone is on Medicare that could benefit from the PSHB Act, they should look into those details so they know exactly what the best option is for them.
Wow, listening to all this got me thinking.If someone is enrolled in another federal benefit program, will this new rollout affect them?What's the answer to that?
Well, generally, the other federal benefits programs should not be affected by the introduction of PSHB. Now, folks still need to do their research if they are enrolled in another federal benefit program, such as TRICARE, just in case.
They could be affected, but ideally, no one will be affected by this introduction, and their benefit programs aren't drastically changing.
Wow, David.Rolling out the PSHB sounds like a lot of work.How are you able to get all this done in time?
It was a lot of work, but it's been very rewarding.To assist us, FEP established what we call the Postal Services Advisory Board, which is a group of former USPS employees who advise us on the rollout of the program.
The board has provided us valuable feedback on our benefits, they've informed us on the needs and concerns of USPS employees and retirees, and they've really done a nice job directing us to the touchpoints where we can reach this audience most effectively.
Now, that's really smart to reach out to former employees to help with this work.Now, if anyone has questions or wants to learn more. Is there a website that you would recommend people to go to, to learn more about this?
Yes, there is.So I would recommend anyone who has questions or is curious about the program to go to www.fepblue.org forward slash USPS.That website is constantly being updated.They have all of the FEP related postal information.
Our website at Blue Cross Blue Shield also has a lot of other information and even a phone number to a helpline that can assist members.
All right, let me repeat that website.It's fepblue.org forward slash USPS.Now, this has been really interesting to learn about.Thank you, David, for walking us through this whole program here.Appreciate it very much.
Yeah, absolutely.Flash.I appreciate you engaging on this conversation.You know, we have the opportunity to talk about FEP and the current work we're doing on over 950,000 postal employees, members and retirees.So it's really important.
We appreciate you highlighting it.
Absolutely.And thank you, Marilee, for joining us once again.This has been another very informative session.
Thank you again for having us, Flash.At Blue Cross and Blue Shield Companies, we are dedicated to supporting American workers and their families so they have the health care coverage they need when they need it.
As for me and my team, we sponsor labor events, conferences, conventions throughout the year, and you can find our full calendar at bcbs.com forward slash national hyphen labor hyphen office.
You can also follow us at Blue Labor on LinkedIn and on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Awesome.A big thank you to our guests from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Merrilee Logue and David Yoder for sharing this valuable information.Until next time.
And that'll be it for another edition of America's Workforce coming up on Monday, Helmets to Hardhats and the Ironworkers saluting Veterans Day.Until then, all of you have a safe and wonderful weekend.
That concludes another episode of the America's Workforce radio podcast.Thanks for listening, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss a show.America's Workforce is a production of Labor Tools and BMA Media Group.
Find out more information online at labortools.com.
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