Bethlehem Steel Collapse Leaves Retired Workers Scrambling for Benefits (95,000 people)

Miami Herald ^ | Sun, Feb. 09, 2003 | DAVID B. CARUSO

[Alberta's Child]

So if he works for the company for 40 years and retires at age 60, he will recieve full coverage for 40 more years (me also) until he reaches 100 years of age.

This is where you are mistaken, as were the Bethlehem Steel employees who were left in the lurch. Your husband only receives full medical coverage for 40 more years after retirement if the company remains solvent for that period of time.

This is a very important distinction that needs to be made.

[A Patriot Son]

The UNION drove them BROKE! There IS no MONEY!
-MonroeDNA

Who signed the contract? Did the Company sign ity and agree to it??? Of course they did.

What do you mean there is no MONEY? You think the company buying them has no money??? Ofcourse they do! If they don't want to honor their contrctual debts then they shouldn't buy the company.

[Constantine XIII]

I have to agree with APS, The company signed a legal contract with the workers, if they can't fulfil their end of the bargain, then that doesn't mean they get to screw the workers just because they are union thugs. A contract is a contract.

This sort of nonsense is what drives normal, hard working, good men to the dark side.

I've seen it happen.

[A Patriot Son]

Be sure to read my posts #79 an 97 it shows you the real roots of the problem.

[MonroeDNA]

"Without the US government financed International Socialism "

Unions are socialist.

Socialism is when you get what you think you need, no matter what you produce.

"From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need" --Kal Marx

When you pay someone more than he/she is worth, becuase of threat of strike, it's socialism.

[smalltown]

The underfunding is most likely due to a decline in the portfolio value of the pension fund.
Portions of most pension funds are invested in the stock market.
Many, maybe most, major company pension funds are technically underfunded at current market values.

[TopDog2]

Cite your sources, please.

Sources for what? The $13/ton labor cost? The amount a retiree pays for healthcare out of their own pocket?

Here is the source for the $13/ton: Trade rules must be enforced

Since I am a steel industry retiree, I think I know a little about the healthcare figures...oh wait...I'm one of those you'd have starve or die...

Sorry to disappoint you, but I plan on staying alive thanks. BTW, I worked in a mill for 30 years...got two BS degrees while I was there and right now I'm three credit hours away from my MBA. I think I know a little more about the steel industry than you do...

[DoughtyOne]

When an employee worked an hour under the agreement with the steel firm, the steel firm was contractually bound to contribute to a health care fund. It doesn't matter if the firm now declares bankruptcy. The healthcare fund is not the steel firm's money. It is the employee healthcare fund's money. If it wasn't set up that way, then Bethlehem Steel is basicly exposed for one of the largest class actions suits in history, it's management team exposed to criminal prosecution.

If that's not the way it works, then the employees have been jobed!

[saminfl]

There was a time when companies thought their most important asset was their employees. They treated their employees as if this was the case (at least Hughes did) until the accountants and business majors took over running the companies. Now, employees seem to be treated as if they are a financial liability. I suppose the accountants and business majors can write the software that flies the jets today.

[jimkress]

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

[DoughtyOne]

I agree. None of the same regulations on employee safety, environment, et al apply overseas. Mexico doesn't go by US food dictates when it raised crops for consumption in the US. None of the same water, and insecticide regulations apply. And we calmly go along to get along.

[MonroeDNA]

If the new compay had to pay off the retirement, they wouldn't have bought them at all, and all of the plants would have closed.

Nobody would have bought them for those terms.

There is no money.

[Alberta's Child]

Then why is the pension fund minus over 3 BILLION dollars??

This is actually a common problem with pension plans in old industrial giants. These pension plans are sometimes underfunded because the average life expectancy has increased so dramatically over the last 50 years. Someone who retires at age 60 could very well spend more years collecting a pension and health care benefits than he did working for the company -- when these pension plans were first put in place, it was fairly uncommon for someone to live more than ten years after he retired.

[MonroeDNA]

"oh wait...I'm one of those you'd have starve or die..."

Wow. Did you really say that?

"oh wait...I'm one of those you'd have starve or die..."

"oh wait...I'm one of those you'd have starve or die..."

"oh wait...I'm one of those you'd have starve or die..."

Your Dick Gepheardt, right?

[A Patriot Son]

You keep talking about companies and the Unions in a vaccuum as if destructive socialist government policies don't exist. Are you in government-does-no-wrong-la-la-land?

Answer these questions:

(1)Is it Socialism when the US government spend billions and builds modern steel plant in China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and Germany as it has?

(2)Do you aprove of this International Socialism at American citizens' expense?

[Alberta's Child]

Thanks for the info!

[free from tyranny]

I would be careful resting your credentials on the thin mantle of an over inflated, over priced academic system that has yet to feel the same deflationary pressures of your former vocation.

It doesn't take an advanced degree to acknowledge the source of the western world's economic woes.

CHINA

Open Trade with a totalitarian tyranny... an organization ( no country ) with a currency that is about as transparent and flexible as a slab of concrete. With trading partners like this who needs an enemy.

[A Patriot Son]

The compny knew of the legally binding contracts when they agreed the company.

Yet you want the citizens and US taxpayers to get screwed on the deal for a foreign company.

[LasVegasMac]

What whiney, self-absorbed crap! These people are responsible for their own well being. What did they do to insure their own retirement? "Implied contracts" are worth exactly the paper on which they are (not) written. But it's soooo much easier to blame their own failures on eveyone else.

They should remember that assume begins with ass. They assumed they'd be taken care of by some one else. They assumed wrong.

Pretty quick with the "it's all your fault" attitude aren't you.

Just remember a couple of things: They really did help build this country - with a lot of blood, sweat and tears. They actually had the faith to believe in the company, unlike today.

Show some respect....*(@%*#%$!, damn.

LVM

[A Patriot Son]

The ant can store plan and save all he wants but it doesn't mean squat when the homowner(federal government) comes and sprays him with big bottle of raid!