Posted on 02/09/2003 4:00:38 PM PST by A Patriot Son
Bethlehem Steel collapse leaves retired workers scrambling for benefits
(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.'"
It may go down in history as a promise unfulfilled.
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."
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On the Net:
Bethlehem Steel: http://www.bethsteel.com
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.
Gee, you'd think that working for 40 years in a dangerous industry would count for something.
Perhaps you were being sarcastic?
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.
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.
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.
No some BS about a grasshopper.
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.
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
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.
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