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

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

[A Patriot Son]

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.

[A Patriot Son]

Bethlem had over 300,000 working relatively high paying mostly blue collar during world war II. It had over 50,000 people working at Baltimore's Sparrows Point--the then largest steel plant in the world. Now it has less than 12,000 people nationwide.

[jimkress]

"We helped the country, and the people who helped to build the country should get the benefit of it," Pancoe said.

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.

[A Patriot Son]

They weren't implied contracts they were guaranteed and part of workers salary and benefits that the company agreed in written contracts to provide the workers in exchange for their labor.

[jimkress]

Not the retirement health care.

[pickemuphere]

These people are responsible for their own well being. What did they do to insure their own retirement?

Gee, you'd think that working for 40 years in a dangerous industry would count for something.

Perhaps you were being sarcastic?

[mewzilla]

But aren't those contracts at risk if the company is sold? Are buyers obligated to assume the pension and healthcare costs?

[A Patriot Son]

What did these American citizens that you have so much contempt fail at?

They provided the services they agreed to in exchange for the wages an benefits the company promised them in written contracts. You not only have contempt for your fellow American citizens and their livelihoods but contempt for legal contracts and the rule of law.

[jimkress]

Perhaps you were being sarcastic?

Not in the least. If they refused to save what they earned so that they could enjoy retirement, they deserve the vicissitudes they currently enjoy. They are not entitled to a dime of anyone else's money.

They should have paid more attention to the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper.

[jimkress]

See 9)

[A Patriot Son]

Are buyers obligated to assume the pension and healthcare costs?

Yes

If you owned a farm and sold it with 10 men working for you do you think it would be legal or moral for you and/or the buyer to just not pay them their last month's wages or however much you owed them?

And would you do that?

If the buyer doesn't want to assume the debts of the company then they should not buy it.

[A Patriot Son]

The retirement healthplan was in their written contracts.

[A Patriot Son]

Reply to what I said specifically please.

No some BS about a grasshopper.

[and the horse you rode in on]

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.

No war today is going to last long enough to even think about ordering new heavy equipment (tanks, ships) and having them built before the end.
Modern sophisticated equipment can't be thrown together in an old automobile plant after a few months conversion.
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.

[Norman Arbuthnot]

It had over 50,000 people working at Baltimore's Sparrows Point--the then largest steel plant in the world. Now it has less than 12,000 people nationwide.

The old abandoned steelworks of Bethlehem are now being converted to a museum.

Well we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they're killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line

Billy Joel, Allentown, 1982

[mewzilla]

I'm not disagreeing with you about the immorality of screwing the workers. Just wondering why the workers didn't ever put plans in place in case they got screwed.

[bvw]

Any contract with future delivery is subject to risk. The union contracts for lifetime benefits are a contract foir future delivery. They are an especially worrisome type of contract too -- they guarenteed a level of benefit, against an unknowable future cost, IIRC. The were a loan against the companies future vitality. The burden of payment was left to the future, to the employees and owners in the future.

Well, the future wasn't rosy scenario. Expenses went up, revenues went down. You can't squeeze water from a rock. The weight of the pension and benefit agreements really acted against the companies. Lenders where reluctant to lend against already encumbered earnings and investors did not want to be saddled with the burden.

What the workers grabbed for, fought for, ends up being an empty bag -- becuase they grabbed for the wrong bag. A bag that promised NO risk for them. No one can make such promises about the future, and anyone who demands them is foolish. Had the workers, had the union bosses, signed on to share the future risk -- things might have been different.

[MonroeDNA]

Unions do themselves in, once again.

Socialism fails, as it always does.

[A Patriot Son]

No some people are completely ruthless and believe a man's livelihood and his family is nothing and a contract is toilet paper. This is why we are losing our country.

[MonroeDNA]

Welcome, member of two weeks.