THE GLOBE professes that “the solutions are clear enough’’ to the problem of rising health insurance costs (“Soaring municipal health costs cry out for a state overhaul,’’ Editorial, March 2), yet does not address the actual solutions or the real problems, and chooses instead to scapegoat workers. The position that workers’ collective bargaining rights and agreements are the problem ignores the real drivers behind rising health care costs - bad business practices by insurers, drug companies, and hospitals and misuse of costly treatments.
Since management in health care and municipalities are incapable of figuring out how to run their enterprises, the Globe shouts their tired message for them: Blame workers. These contracts are not giveaways to workers. Management demanded concessions to balance health benefits. Workers negotiated to preserve their health benefits, most importantly giving up wages, but also holidays and vacations.
The Globe says that all those concessions should be ignored, and managers should get unilateral power to shift costs onto workers who already suffer from years without pay raises and with rising costs. The Globe says workers “refuse to give up’’ their health benefits, failing to acknowledge all the things workers have given up for decades. Just as in contract negotiations, workers have been willing to compromise on legislation regarding this issue. It’s the obstinate management front-group, the Massachusetts Municipal Association, that has been intractable. The Globe should at least acknowledge that this isn’t about cost savings but cost shifting.
Robert J. Haynes
President
Massachusetts AFL-CIO
Malden 
