[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.

[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.

[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.

[DoughtyOne]

There are several things about this article that seriously P me off.

"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.'"

What has socialized medicine got to do with workers and employers coming to an agreement where part of the pay package was a guaranteed healthcare program?  That isn't socialism.  Are vacations, holidays, sick leave etc. socialism?  Heck no.  They are a compensated benefit meeted out based on hours worked and benefits achieved.  Every hour these employees worked, the employer was essentially promising to set aside a portion of funds to insure their healthcare in perpetuity.

That may sound unfair the the employer.  Over a 45 year career, we're talking about close to 100,000 hours of labor.  If three or four dollars an hour were put into a fund for these emplyees, as part of their pay package, this would never have happened.  So basicly what Bethlehem Steel is admitting to, is that they did not follow through with their end of the bargain.

Steel industry employees were highly paid.  They had good benefits packages because the steel industry was making good profits.

Management agreed to provide this service.  The employees worked their entire service careers under this agreement.  Now the funds aren't there.  When these employees were working, and the steel industry was healthy, Bethlehem management should have been putting funds away to make sure this fund was solvent.

Now this peckerhead claims that this was sortof like socialism.  No, evidently it was sortof like fraud!

[MonroeDNA]

Already posted here: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/839442/posts?page=14

[Tacis]

Most of these workers belonged to unions, mostly the United Steel Workers (USW). Over the years, the USW struck the company and extorted cash and benefits. The union believed the golden goose was eternal and no extortion was too extreme. An industry which might have been able to compete in a world market with employees who cost $50,000 per year, couldn't with 130% of the required employees who cost $85,000 each.

We told them we couldn't compete with South Koreans, Chinese, and Eastern Europeans at those labor costs. The USW said, "Screw you, pay this or we'll shut you down." The union officers have lost nothing. They had even richer packages and they are all OK.

I regret the pain to individuals, but they are the ones who walked the picket lines for the unions that ruined the company and the industry. They are getting what they deserve.

[free from tyranny]

What Bethlehem did is new? HAH! How can anyone put the blame solely on this steel company? Greed? Poor Management? Since when did Bethelem Steel start operating in an economic vacuum?

%^&@*& hypocrites make me sick! Where were the voters when their elected officials gutted the sovereignty of the USA. Where were the responsible citizens when the stock market's latest ruse hastened the decline of US manufacturing? Where are the improvished naives now?

They are stuck shopping at Wal-Mart for the cheapest garbage they can afford.

Forest Gump said it best," Stupid is as stupid does!"

[You Dirty Rats]

This is a tragic situation for these workers. It was the clear intention of the company and the union to provide for them. Unfortunately, intentions weren't enough.

The problem isn't the pending takeover. In a takeover, the new owners must assume the obligations of the old. For ecample, if you have a valid rental contract and the owner of the apartment sells the property, the new owner can't evict you without cause. This takeover, loke those of a lot of distressed companies, will happen AFTER bankruptcy discharges the obligations.

There are several problems in many of these old industrial companies. The basic problem is a decline in the worth of the assets. That forces these companies into bankruptcy.

Here's where the workers (unionized and otherwise)lose out. Pension plans are funded by the company -- the company puts money aside to earn investment income to provide for the retirees. Recently, the sharp decline in the stock markets has reduce the value of the pension plans and as a result, many are underfunded. However, the Federal Government insures the pensions, so the workers don't lose their benefits.

Medical benefits aren't funded and are not guaranteed by the Feds. If the company goes bankrupt, benefits stop since it is pay-as-you-go.

Why are pension plans funded and medical benefits not? Simple: the former are tax-deductable. That's why everyone's pension is funded and nobody's medical benefits are (in the corporate world, at least).

Unfunded promises may have been well-meaning, but they have been awful for a lot of good hard-working people. Lack of foresight on the part of company and union bosses have hurt everyone. Anyone who can't feel something for a hard-working tough old steelworker who has lost his medical benefits after a lifetime working in those hellish conditions has a tin can for a heart.

[EverOnward]

A cursory google search on steel dumping will clearly point out why our US steel industry hasn't got a fighting chance against the Asian, Russian, South American and Europoean (mainly British Steel) countries who are unloading their steel here at unfair and uncompetitive rates. The FTC is more likely to rule against the US as for it. The end result is the bankruptcy of our industrial base.

[Daus]

This is another case of the current union members screwing the retired members.

The benefit programs just got richer and richer while the industry got sicker and sicker. Heck, I've read that the current Union leadership ever supported this purchase (to once again save thier own short-term hide, at the expense of the retired).

I am somewhat familiar with the particulars of this case, and at the end of the day the health care/pension liabilities of Beth Steel were twice the current market cap of the company as a whole. That's called a death spiral. They could have not sold and just shut the whole place down, but then what good would have that done?

[the_daug]

It seems to me I herd a lot of unions resisted inovation that increased productivity on account that it would cost jobs. I think that resistance costed more jobs in the end. If BSC is bankrupt then there is going to be a lot of people who loose (not just workers).

[STONEWALLS]

"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."

.....I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned more.....a country that can't make it's own steel is a weak country......ol' Mao was right when he said all power comes from the barrel of a gun.

[dirtydanusa]

Obviously, some of the morons commenting on this subject have never been in or near a Steel Mill, they might get dirty. It is not a cushy desk job where the biggest medical fear is carpal tunnel or a really bad papercut. And the morons who say let other countries make our steel for cheaper had better look at the long term affects. They say lets buy Chinese steel but forget the chinese worker makes about $.20, has no health care or retirement. Americans are against slavery but look the other way at what China does to its workers. China opposes the war on Iraq, gave the North Koreans nukes and we STUPID Americans buy all the Chinese crap a Walmart or Kmart can hold.

[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?

[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.