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

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

[TopDog2]

While Nucor does not pay the same wages as a union steel mill, productivity and gain-sharing payments mean that Nucor and unionized steel mills end up paying their workers about the same amount.

True, that $13/ton is at Nucor. Even if labor costs were twice as high (very doubtful) at an integrated mill, it would still be less than the cost to ship a ton of steel from China.

[537 Votes]

Without a healthy Steel Industry America will not be able to support it's military and national defense when it needs to most in an emergency military situation.

Steel . . . isn't that the stuff under the teflon on frying pans?

[bytheBook]

It certainly is disappointing to find that the company that you signed on with, in my case in 1978, has abdicated and no longer provides much of anything as far as benefits. With all of the downsizing though I am grateful to still be employed. After a devastating divorce, which I did not want, I am left deeply in debt with next to no company provided benefits or pension to rely on and three children to put through college. I hope to work until I drop. I depend on me. The situation changes and we have to adapt or die.

[bvw]

The 401k's were a great step in the right direction. They still have problems, but a huge improvement over company pension plans. One big improvment would be to allow employees to roll out the company 401k into a private 401k, under their full control. Can that be done now? I might be, I may well have missed that ability, that you cannot roll out/over a company 401k until you leave the company is my understanding.

I also don't know very well how the health form of 401k's work regarding roll-over into private plans. I know COBRA's after exit are expensive -- buying your own individual plan runs cheaper, the coverage may not be comparable. I should know more how the MSA's roll-over, but I don't. Still I like the MSA's ... medical saings accounts, that concept.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Our wars will either be short and sharp wars against savages like the Iraqi's or a fast nuclear war against China or Russia.

Neither one will require new mass produced equipment.

You got that right. If we kept every failing industry afloat in the name of national security we'd still be producing bi-planes for the war against Iraq.

[MonroeDNA]

"The PMA responded by offering a 17% increase, which would hike the average salaries for longshoremen and marine clerks to $114,500 and $137,500 respectively."

From this site: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/articles/10-21-02/staff.htm

Thanks, unions, for ading huge shipping costs to everything I buy from overseas. Hope you enjoy your artifically inflated salary.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Unions do themselves in, once again.

Socialism fails, as it always does.

Someday, you anti-Union spwers will have to sit down and explain to me the socialism of workers bargaining with their employers for wages and benefits.

Apparently, I missed the public ownership issues involved in that negotiation process that your keen mind detects.

Or is it socialism for workers to simply demand and obtain a fair renumeration for dangerous labor?

Have you ever worked a day in your life outside an air conditioned office with a swivel chair?