Employers, labor unions complicate benefits for couples in civil unions

As labor unions and employers work to integrate Colorado’s 2013 civil unions law into their policies, it’s still unclear whether certain LGBT couples will be granted the same employee benefits afforded to married couples here.

David Smith, a Grand Junction grocery store employee in a civil union with his partner Ron Zotto, is waiting on the outcome of on an upcoming meeting between his labor union, his employer’s parent company and two other major grocery store chains to see how and when he and many other lesbian and gay workers in Colorado will be able to add their partners to their employee health insurance.

Since 1981 Smith has worked at City Market, a store owned by Kroger — known throughout most of Colorado for its King Soopers grocery store chains — which began offering employee benefits to same-sex partners in 2001, but only to non-union employees.

“My store manager came to me and said, ‘congratulations, Kroger is going to offer same-sex benefits to their employees,’” Smith said, “But I never could sign up for them. It was (for) non-union only.”

Smith works as a frozen food clerk, a closed-shop union job with benefits negotiated between Kroger and the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7. Health care coverage for same-sex partners is not included in the benefit plan.

“I let it lay,” Smith said. “At that time there were no legal challenges that were going to do anything that would benefit us at that time.”

Smith and Zotto have been partners for more than 25 years and raised a family together. Smith first met Zotto through his mother, and he and Zotto purchased their first home together in the mid 1980s.

“Ron and my mother worked at the airport together,” said Smith. “That’s how I met him. We were friends for years.”

Together Smith and Zotto helped raise two of Zotto’s children from a previous marriage, a boy and a girl, who are now grown.

“We have four grandkids now,” Smith said. “I was never able to have him [Zotto] as a dependent. Medical bills for him and his children came out of pocket.”

The couple entered a civil union as soon as they were legalized in Colorado on May 1 at the Grand Junction Courthouse. Afterward, Smith asked his union about adding his partner to his benefits.

“I proceeded to call and ask about adding my spouse to my insurance and they said no,” Smith said. “I was told it would cause a financial burden to the plan.”

The UFCW Local 7 union has more than 25,000 members in Colorado and Wyoming, representing professions from grocery store workers to barbers to health care professionals.

“We are absolutely for civil union partners to be covered,” said Kim Cordova, President of the UFCW Local 7. “We have to get the employer side to agree with it. That conversation will not happen until September.”

Cordova told Out Front the UFCW Local 7 plans to propose extending health coverage to same-sex partners in a civil union this September at an annual meeting with Kroger, Albertsons and Safeway. Cordova added that for the proposal to pass, one of the three employers must vote to extend benefits. If they do not, an arbitrator must settle the issue.

“The union trustees are in support of it,” said Cordova. “We think that if they [Kroger] cover (benefits for workers) on the non-union side, then they should cover for the union workers.”

Cordova also responded to Smith being told that adding same-sex couples to the health care plan would cause a financial burden.

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘burden,’ but there is additional cost,” Cordova said. “For the retail contracts, you bargain for a defined contribution from the employer. That gives you a budget. So now this is a benefit change, so we could be picking up new participants. That is a cost that was unexpected when we bargained the contracts.”

The current benefit contracts with Kroger, Safeway, and Albertsons and the UFCW Local 7, which include coverage for associates in a common law marriage, were ratified in 2010 and cannot be renegotiated until 2015. “If we run out of money,” Cordova said, “what happens is the company doesn’t have to put more money into the trust fund. What they do is they just start reducing benefits.”

Cordova said the UFCW Local 7 proposed adding same-sex partners to the health benefit plan in 2009. “There were no civil unions here in Colorado, but we had proposed that in the past in bargaining. We couldn’t get the employers to agree. At that point the workers did not vote to strike. King Soopers and Kroger workers voted to ratify their contracts without that provision in there.”

Out Front reached out to Kroger for a response regarding how the company would vote at the upcoming meeting.

“I don’t think we know that, yet,” said Kelli McGannon of the King Soopers/City Market Division of Kroger in Colorado.

“It’s our goal to provide all of our associates with better than average healthcare,” McGannon added.

This year, Kroger received an 85 percent approval rating from the Human Rights Campaign’s equality index regarding employer recognition of LGBT worker rights.

But Smith said years of being unable to include Zotto on his health insurance plan have already taken a financial and physical toll on their family.

Zotto has been diagnosed with melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, twice. At the time, Zotto had health coverage through his own employer to help cover medical costs. He was laid off, and afterward the cancer returned. With no health coverage, Smith and Zotto had to pay for a second surgery out of pocket.

“He’s doing well now,” Smith said, but said he and Zotto are worried that the cancer will come back again.

“We’ve actually been holding off on going back to the dermatologist,” Smith said. “We thought we would be able to get health benefits, and then be able to go back. The sooner the better on getting health insurance so that we can be proactive rather than basically bankrupting us if there is a problem.”