I’m a member of my local musician’s union, but my union work is sporadic, rarely amounting to full time work, and is supplemented by various music-adjacent work that is not covered by the musicians union.
I’m required to join the union to do the gigs I do, and these employers contribute money (calculated as a percentage of each paycheck) on behalf of each musician to the union health fund, which provides (excellent) health insurance to its members. There are quarterly thresholds for health fund contributions that have to be met in order to qualify for the insurance which are quite high; basically you need to be working full time on union gigs only (many gigs aren’t union) in order to make the threshold consistently, which is not a reality for probably the majority, or at least a very large portion of union members.
Do I have any recourse in this situation? Health fund contributions on my behalf have amounted to nearly $10,000 over the past several years, but I don’t receive benefits of any kind and am stuck paying for a marketplace plan on my own. It strikes me as unethical, and also crazy to take money from poorer union members and use it to pay for insurance for richer ones. Am I missing something here? I assume this is a legal practice, but is there anything I can do to recoup those funds and apply them to my own healthcare costs?
Thanks for any help!
submitted by /u/rippedoffbylocal802
[link] [comments]
I’m a member of my local musician’s union, but my union work is sporadic, rarely amounting to full time work, and is supplemented by various music-adjacent work that is not covered by the musicians union. I’m required to join the union to do the gigs I do, and these employers contribute money (calculated as a percentage of each paycheck) on behalf of each musician to the union health fund, which provides (excellent) health insurance to its members. There are quarterly thresholds for health fund contributions that have to be met in order to qualify for the insurance which are quite high; basically you need to be working full time on union gigs only (many gigs aren’t union) in order to make the threshold consistently, which is not a reality for probably the majority, or at least a very large portion of union members. Do I have any recourse in this situation? Health fund contributions on my behalf have amounted to nearly $10,000 over the past several years, but I don’t receive benefits of any kind and am stuck paying for a marketplace plan on my own. It strikes me as unethical, and also crazy to take money from poorer union members and use it to pay for insurance for richer ones. Am I missing something here? I assume this is a legal practice, but is there anything I can do to recoup those funds and apply them to my own healthcare costs? Thanks for any help!
submitted by /u/rippedoffbylocal802 [link] [comments]Read Morer/HealthInsurance