The purpose of cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) is vitally important. COLA is supposed to protect our general wage increases from being eaten up by inflation, so that we can gain more purchasing power, rather than merely tread water or even sink.

But in GE, what we have is better described as DIET COLA. That’s because the formula by which our COLA is calculated (one cent for each 0.11% rise in the Consumer Price Index) protects us against less than half of the effects of price increases. Having no COLA at all for the last four months of the Contract has now brought our overall level of protection against inflation down to about 41% and falling.

GE workers stand to lose about 85¢ an hour to inflation during the term of this Contract. That’s on top of over 80¢ an hour we lost over the course of the 1994-97 Contract. And the longer we go without improving our COLA formula, and the more inflation accelerates, the greater our losses will be. It’s time to exchange our Diet COLA for some of the real thing!
  

A COLA FORMULA THAT GIVES US FULL
PROTECTION AGAINST PRICE INCREASES!