"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!
Do you think this "peckerhead" is going to have to surrender part of his compensation that he received over the years? Is he going to have to give up his stock options or millions of dollars in bonuses he likely got?
His comment about this being "socialism" is nothing more than an attempt to get the knee-jerk anti-labor Republicans to get on his side when it comes to screwing over the workers.