Employers may be allowed to end lifetime health-care benefits for retirees under a U.S. Supreme Court decision that suggested unclear union contracts should not automatically be interpreted in favor of workers.
Retirees at the M&G Polymers USA plant in Apple Grove, W.Va., were provided health-care benefits as part of their pensions. But the company, a unit of Mossi Ghisolfi Group in Italy, sought in 2006 to make retirees contribute to health-care costs.
The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled the company had reneged on the contract, saying it was “unlikely that [the union] would agree” to such a deal “if the company could unilaterally change the level of contribution.”
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