The failure of the Republican-controlled Congress to provide relief from massive retiree health care obligations for the nation’s steel industry has led to the termination of health benefits for thousands of retirees at the time they can least afford it, according to the Steelworkers.
The latest victims of this congressional inaction are the 95,000 retirees at the bankrupt Bethlehem Steel Corp., after the company announced Feb. 7 it planned to end health and life insurance benefits for retirees and their dependents March 31.
The Steelworkers have fought for years to win protection of these benefits through federal legislation. In the past session of Congress, the Republican leadership blocked consideration of the Steel Industry Legacy Relief Act of 2002, introduced by Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Ray LaHood (R-Ill.), and a similar bill authored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.). The bill would have provided continued health care to steel industry retirees.
The bipartisan bill had more than 225 co-sponsors from both parties, enough for a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, but the Republican leadership, with the support of the Bush administration, refused to bring it to the floor for a vote.
In a ploy to get Fast Track trade promotion authority legislation passed in July 2002, President George W. Bush and his allies included a tax credit program to help steel retirees buy health insurance from private insurers. But such a program is unlikely to work, USWA leaders said, because it requires retirees to pay up to one-third of the premium costs out of pocket and it requires many hurdles on eligibility and other rules.
Congress’ failure is disappointing and outrageous to such Bethlehem retirees as Tom Little, who is caught up in Bethlehem’s bankruptcy. He expected that when he retired the steel company would provide health care for him for the rest of his life. Little retired four years ago after working 31 years at Bethlehem’s Sparrows Point plant near Baltimore. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Little, now 54 and the father of two grown sons, one of whom works at the Sparrows Point plant. “I don’t know who to turn to. My wife and I had doctor appointments in April and we’re trying to move them to before March 31. If I get sick, I don’t know how I’ll pay for it, but I won’t lie on the floor and die.”
USWA President Leo Gerard condemned Bethlehem’s decision as a “morally callous act. For a bankrupt company that is doling out millions in golden parachutes to top executives to say that it must cut off the health care benefits of people who worked a lifetime in the mills is a disgrace,” Gerard said.
Little said his brother, who is 65, worked in Sparrows Point for 43 years and now he is losing his benefits. Although his brother is eligible for Medicare, his sister-in-law is not, Little said. “When you’re young and strong as a bull, you don’t need health insurance as much. But now when we need it, they’re taking it away.”
The steel industry has been hard hit by weakened markets and by retiree health care costs. Racked by illegal steel imports and rising health care costs, some 35 steel companies have declared bankruptcy since 1997. Before Bethlehem’s recent announcement, bankruptcies had left more than 100,000 steel retirees without any health coverage.
The union is trying to negotiate a benefit trust to pay for retirees’ health care as part of a new contract with International Steel Group Inc. (ISG) of Cleveland, which agreed Feb. 8 to buy Bethlehem. The USWA reached such a deal with ISG after the company bought and reopened the steel mills of the defunct LTV Corp.
The USWA also will redouble its efforts to protect the benefits of retirees such as Little, Gerard said. The solution to the problem is a federal national health care system, union leaders said. The AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council in its first legislative conference Feb. 4 called for a national health care system. “As a nation we must respond to the cost crisis that confronts us with a national strategy that will help employers without bankrupting active and retired employees,” Gerard says. “We need a system that treats health care as a right for all rather than a privilege for some.”
Tom Little agrees. “There should be some federal law protecting us. It’s not just happening at Bethlehem Steel, it seems like it’s an ongoing trend. We need to beat on the people we vote for. Somebody’s got to stop this.”
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