10. January—Westbach — The Lee Co.a 75-year-old manufacturer of plugs, valves, nozzles and filters for precise fluid control products used in the aerospace, automotive, defense, medical and power generation industries may have found a way to attract the many new workers The ones it needs while happy are those who have it.
It pays their monthly health insurance premiums.
The company went public on Tuesday with what it called an “unprecedented new healthcare benefit” for its 1,100 employees worldwide, more than 1,000 of whom work at the company’s facilities here and in China Essex. Many live in the Southeast Connecticut.
away January 1stthe company’s employees no longer have to pay monthly bonuses Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield coverage provided by the company, Bill Leethe company’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, at a press conference attended by state and local officials.
“This is an extremely proud day for The Lee Societysaid Lee, a Connecticut College Graduate whose father, Leighton Lee II, founded the company in 1948.
Responsibility remains with employees anthem Century Preferred’s “modest” health plan co-payments and deductibles. The coverage level of the plan has not changed.
Lee declined to say how much the generosity would cost the company, but according to a study the company cites in a press release, the average annual employee contribution to family insurance is around Connecticut exceeds $6,000. The study was conducted by the US Agency for Research and Quality in Healthcare.
Chris DiPentimaPresident and Chief Executive Officer of Connecticut Business and Industry Associationa trade group, applauded The Lee Co. for giving a helping hand to employees in a challenging economic climate of record inflation and rising interest rates.
Connecticut is facing a “labor crisis,” DiPentima said. “If every unemployed person in Connecticut had a job, there would still be 40,000 vacancies.”
Paul Lavoiesaid the state’s chief manufacturing officer Connecticut needs more employers to find ways to attract people to the state.
“We need people,” he said.
Marietta Lee, the company’s chief operating officer, general counsel and corporate secretary, said the company hired more people last year than any other year in its history and expects to hire even more this year. She said it launched a training school that new employees attend several times a week “while they’re on the clock.” More than 100 employees have graduated from the program and another 80 are currently enrolled in it, she said.
Bill LeeMarietta’s uncle said the company had invested 200 million dollars in plants, machines and plants in the last decade. He said it has also invested in its workforce, providing a fully company-funded profit-sharing plan, performance bonuses, a tuition reimbursement program and a scholarship fund.
Several workers were made available to reporters at the press conference, including Mark Wolf, production manager in his 28th year with the company. He remembered paying a $30 Co-payment when his wife was hospitalized during her first pregnancy in 2000.
“That $30 was all I ever paid for,” Wolf said.
Karlye DeGenaro from branfordVending machine operator joined the company a few years ago as a temporary help Essex Furnishings. She said staff were briefed on health care at a meeting last month.
“For most people, that’s not a lot,” she said of the monthly insurance premium they no longer have to pay. “But every little helps.”
Jeff Dickey from Westbach, Executive Vice President of Hydraulics, has been with the company for 40 years. He said his insurance premium hasn’t changed in that time and that he wasn’t sure the announcement that it would be scrapped would provoke a big reaction at the December meeting.
“Basically, the place has gone crazy,” he said.
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