Mexico Reaches Accord With Health-Care Workers, Averting Strike
Mexico has reached an agreement with leaders of a union representing its Social Security Institute, avoiding a strike that threatened to suspend health care for 42.5 million Mexicans this month, President Vicente Fox said.
Union leaders late last night agreed to accept a 4 percent pay increase and a government promise to hire 65,000 additional workers, said Leopoldo Perez Priego, assistant to union leader Roberto Vega Galina in a telephone interview from Mexico City. The union also agreed to raise worker pension contributions to 4 percent of their salaries, an amount that will increase each year by a percentage point until reaching 10 percent, Perez said.
“The pensions issue is a priority issue for my government and also a priority issue for our economy,'’ Fox said, speaking to reporters at a meeting of Ibero-American leaders in Salamanca, Spain. “We are all going to win with this and we are going to announce big investments in the Mexican Social Security Institute, in all its network of hospitals, so that we can provide an excellent service to these 13 million workers and their families.'’
More: bloomberg.com
Ca. health plans send patients to Mexico
A trip to the doctor means a trip across the border for thousands of California workers and their dependents.
They are enrolled in health plans like Blue Shield of California HMO that cost up to 50 percent less than other plans because the doctor's visits are outsourced to Mexico, the Washington Post reported.
California is the only state to regulate insurance programs that require border crossing for basic health care.
More than 700 non-agricultural businesses in California offer plans requiring treatment in Mexico. Hundreds of farms offer similar coverage for about 120,000 migrant laborers.
Texas physicians successfully fought
Doctor visits outsourced to Mexico
There are world-class hospitals in San Diego, not far from where Luis Gonzales lives. But when he or a member of his family needs routine health services, they drive 50 miles south to a clinic in Tijuana.
The Gonzaleses are members of a Blue Shield of California HMO that provides all of the family's nonemergency care in Mexico. They are among 20,000 California workers and their dependents in health plans that cost 40 to 50 percent less than comparable care in the United States because the doctor's visits are outsourced south of the border.
With health-care costs
VW Mexico workers may strike Thursday for 12.5 pct pay hike
Volkswagen AG workers at its Puebla plant in Mexico may go on strike on Thursday to support demands for a 12.5 pct pay hike, Financial Times Deutschland reported, citing a trade union spokesman.
The spokesman said while VW has not made an offer yet it has rejected a 'spectacular salary adjustment'.
Workers at the plant last staged a three-day strike one year ago and pushed through a 4.5 pct wake increase.
The Puebla plant makes the New Beetle and Jetta and employs 12,000 workers.
More: forbes.com
California health costs send patients to Mexico facilities
There are world-class hospitals in San Diego, not far from where Luis Gonzales lives. But when he or a member of his family needs routine health services, they drive 50 miles south to a clinic in Tijuana.
The Gonzaleses are members of a Blue Shield of California HMO that provides the family's nonemergency care in Mexico. They are among 20,000 California workers and dependents in plans that cost 40 to 50 percent less than comparable care in the United States because doctor's visits are outsourced south of the border.
With healthcare costs in the
Health Net and Consulate General of Mexico in Los Angeles Address Health Care Gap among Latinos; First-Ever Cross-Border Plans for Individuals and Families
Health Net of California, in collaboration with theConsul General of Mexico, today introduced new and innovative productsand services specifically addressing the Latino health care gap inCalifornia.
The Mexi-Plan program and the Health Net Cross-Border Individualand Family Plans are the first-ever cross-border health care plansavailable to individual consumers who purchase benefits directly frominsurers. Both are part of Salud con Health Net, Health Net'sgroundbreaking initiative providing health care coverage and financialsecurity to the Latino community.
Mexi-Plan was developed through a unique collaboration
Insurance plans send patients to Mexico
A more cost-effective health care plan for southern California's Latino workers has employees going south of the border to see a doctor.
Insurance companies say about 160,000 workers visit doctors in Mexico to take advantage of the low premiums and co-pays, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Some executives as well as farmers, service industry employees and municipal employees in San Diego and Imperial counties are enrolled in the insurance plans.
Although conditions aren't as pristine as major U.S. hospitals, patients have voiced little complaint and have reported doctors spend more time with them.
They also like to be
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Volkswagen's Mexican unit reached an agreement with union leaders on Wednesday to increase workers' pay and avoid a strike.
More than 11,000 union workers at Volkswagen's plant near the city of Puebla accepted a 4.2 percent pay raise, preventing a walkout scheduled for Thursday, union leader Jose Luis Rodriguez told reporters.
The Puebla plant, about two hours' drive southeast of the capital, is the only Volkswagen operation in North America and is the sole producer of the popular New Beetle car.
The new salary deal includes minor improvements in benefits, the company and union said.
Workers had originally demanded a
Grupo Mexico official says Asarco strike settlement possible
Officials from Mexican copper mining concern Grupo Mexico SA were meeting with union representatives Friday to try to resolve a three-week-old U.S. strike at the company's Asarco unit, an official said Friday.
In a conference call with analysts to discuss Grupo Mexico's second-quarter results, chief financial officer Eduardo Gonzalez said he believed a solution to the strike was possible.
Friday's meeting was the first between management and the union since more than 1,500 workers went on strike in Arizona and Texas to protest the company's proposed wage freeze and reductions in health and pension
Mexico, Chile to sign strategic association accord
Chile and Mexico will sign a strategic association accord in January in an effort to bring the two countries closer politically, culturally and technically, presidents of the two countries said at a joint press conference on Friday.
The visiting Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and his Mexican counterpart, Vicente Fox, said in the eastern city of Veracruz that the agreement would be formally signed during Fox's visit to Chile next month.
Legislators of the two countries will be able to contribute to the text of the accord
Mexico's Penoles Workers Postpone Strike Date to Vote Offer
Miners at Industrias Penoles SA, Mexico's largest silver miner, deferred a strike date scheduled for yesterday at a silver-and-lead mine to vote on a salary offer, the union said in a statement.
The strike at the mine in Naica, Chihuahua, was delayed until Jan. 27 at 2 p.m. New York time while the vote is organized, local union leader Sergio Chavira said in the statement. The terms of the Penoles offered weren't disclosed.
More than 350 union miners work at Naica, the largest lead mine in Mexico. The mine in 2005 produced
