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

(AP) Sun, Feb. 09, 2003 BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Some of them went to work in the blast furnaces when they were just 18, then spent half a lifetime handling molten slag and inhaling steel dust in some of the most dangerous jobs on earth.

But for the tens of thousands of Bethlehem Steel workers who stuck it out, retirement brought a rich reward: a hefty pension and a lifetime of almost free health care for themselves and their families.

"It was capitalism's version of socialized medicine," said James Van Vliet, a retired Bethlehem Steel vice president. "And it was an implied contract. It was the company and the workers saying, 'We are going to take care of each other.'"

Bankrupt and only a shadow of its former might, Bethlehem Steel on Friday announced it was seeking bankruptcy court approval to terminate health and life insurance benefits for 95,000 retired workers and their dependents on March 31.

The move, seen as essential to the company's bid to sell its assets to International Steel Group, followed news in December that Bethlehem Steel's pension plan was underfunded by $3.2 billion and would be turned over to a government agency.

Both pieces of bad news were expected. The American steel industry has been in decline for decades, and most of its former giants have been trimming pensions and benefits for retirees for years.

But the one-two punch is still a staggering blow for a generation that had been promised a lifetime of comforts in return for a career spent at one company.

Now, some are facing the prospect of seeing their monthly $6 payments for health insurance jump to between $200 and $300.

"That's a lot to swallow," said Len Christman, 67, who worked 39 years at Bethlehem Steel's sprawling plant in Bethlehem, about 40 miles north of Philadelphia. "It's a very tough position to be in at this stage in life."

Nearly all retirees will continue to enjoy some benefits. Pension payments, which are being taken over by the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., are expected to continue at about 90 percent of their former level. For workers over 65, the federal Medicare program will pick up some health care costs.

But Medicare, which covers hospital visits, but doesn't pay for medications, won't come close to covering all the health problems suffered by many retired steel workers.

Joe Pancoe, who worked for Bethlehem Steel for 31 years, said that at 81, he has asthma and a hacking cough, and uses a slew of pills and inhalers to soothe his battered lungs.

"We, the old timers, were part of the industrial revolution. And now, we are part of the medical revolution. We have the emphysemas, we have the cancers. We have everything," he said.

He isn't positive his illnesses were related to his work as a spray painter in the plant's fabrication division, where he said his spit turned red from inhaling fumes, or in the research lab where he regularly handled bags of asbestos.

But as he sees it, the country owes him something either way. His labor built propellors for battleships and girders for skyscrapers and bridges.

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

Almost all workers agree Bethlehem Steel is in little position to help. When it filed for bankruptcy in 2001, the company had about 12,000 employees, down from more than 300,000 during World War II. And most factories have been closed, including the one in Bethlehem. The company's board also voted Saturday to sell the company's assets to Cleveland-based International Steel Group, a deal that is subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York.

Bruce Davis, a retired Bethlehem Steel lawyer who now serves as legal counsel for the Retired Employees Benefit Coalition, said several labor groups are negotiating to at least temporarily extend health-care benefits.

The coalition has asked that the company continue health benefits until May 31, rather than March. It also anticipates that it will be able to offer Bethlehem Steel retirees a replacement health insurance package similar to ones offered to retirees at other bankrupt steel companies.

The hardest burden, Davis said, will be borne by retired workers who are under 65, and thereby unable to qualify for Medicare coverage.

"We need to find a way to get them to age 65 without bankrupting their financial portfolio," Davis said. "If we can do that, the pain of seeing this proud company walk away from them, after so many years, will be considerably lessened."

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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?

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