------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 6, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AFTER A LIFETIME OF HARD LABOR: STEEL RETIREES ROBBED OF BENEFITS By Milt Neidenberg Bethlehem Steel was once the second-biggest steel corporation in the world, a 20th-century industrial giant. Now its executives have callously announced that 95,000 retirees and their loved ones will no longer receive health benefits and life insurance after March 31. Pensions have been reduced to marginal levels. The company is seeking to dump them completely. The workers who labored in heat, smoke and soot to make steel under the most difficult and dangerous conditions have been discarded, just like metal scraps lying on the dirt floor. They worked in eight-hour shifts that rotated around the clock from week to week, affecting their health and family lives. On Oct. 15, 2001, Bethlehem Steel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. After the bankruptcy, Bethlehem agreed to sell to a group of investor- speculators--the International Steel Group of Cleveland, which recently took over LTV, another bankrupt steel company. Add LTV retirees and loved ones to the tens of thousands of steel workers who have lost their health benefits and pensions. At this point Bethlehem Steel employs only 12,000 workers--at the Burns Harbor, Ind., plant, the Sparrows Point Division near Baltimore, and in tiny operations in a few plants such as Lackawanna, outside Buffalo, N.Y. A generation ago, the Lackawanna plant alone employed 20,000 workers. Some 30 years ago Lackawanna's smoking coke ovens, towering blast furnaces and fiery open hearths produced over 22 million ingot tons of raw steel annually. Linked by railroads, the mills extended for miles. Over 16 million tons of finished steel were rolled out during the record year of 1973. Then, the company employed about 300,000 workers. They forged the steel for the George Washington and Golden Gate bridges, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, ships and military hardware used in times of war. They also shaped steel for consumer goods, from automobiles to refrigerators. How is it possible, with the infrastructure of the country so in need of repair, that Bethlehem and 18 other giant steel companies have declared bankruptcy over the last four years? What happened to these shuttered, rusting giants? They have become casualties of the power, arrogance and greed of corporate boards, inextricably connected to powerful banks, heedless of the laws of capitalism. Overproduction, the drive for profits, and the capitalist cycles of boom and bust sealed the fate of these industrial dinosaurs. LAYOFFS, MORE PROFITS AND MORE LAYOFFS Steel barons and their Wall Street bankers built an empire that represented the most ruthless, reactionary, anti-union, racist and anti- Semitic sector of the ruling class. They collaborated with the fascist wing in Germany that bankrolled Adolph Hitler. It all began over a century ago when J.P. Morgan and steel tycoon Andrew Carne gie selected Charles M. Schwab to run U.S. Steel, the first billion-dollar corporation of the time. Schwab made his fortune, left, and founded Bethlehem Steel. Steel was the last industrial empire to recognize workers' right to organize a union. Only after many strikes and pitched battles was the United Steel Workers of America born. It held its first constitutional convention in Cleveland in 1942. Until 1973 Black and immigrant workers were concentrated in labor gangs in Bethlehem Steel. They did the heavy, dangerous, dirty jobs. It took the Black rebellions and the civil-rights struggle of the 1960s to overcome 70 years of racist practices. Finally, the company, without admitting guilt, "permitted" these heavily exploited workers to bid into the better paying jobs, covering 32 classifications. Even then, the government looked the other way when the company refused to give back wages or pay any penalties for its criminal activities. The scientific-technological revolution of recent decades was especially hard on steel workers. Computers electronically moved huge machinery and a revolutionary process called the Basic Oxidizing Furnace was introduced. The BOFs eliminated open hearths and other production processes. This led to staggering layoffs. Steel bosses drastically reduced the crews, driving out workers with lower seniority. The new technology produced record amounts of steel. Overproduction created a glut in the market. Global competition became bitter and intense. Profits rose. Jobs were eliminated. Mini-steel plants started up to compete with the sprawling integrated steel plants like Bethlehem. They offered lower capital investment and cheaper, non-union labor costs. They took over a substantial section of the market. Steel plants began to shut down along the rivers and lakes where the smokestack industries were concentrated. Hiring signs became a symbol of the past. Steel towns became ghost towns. It didn't have to happen. WANTED SHORTER WEEK In 1959, some 540,000 steel workers went on strike for 116 days. It was the long est strike in the history of the industry. The bosses wanted drastic changes in work rules. They demanded the elimination of past practices to fit the developing new technology. Progressive union members, including socialists and communists, saw the danger of mass layoffs and raised the slogan of a shorter workweek with no loss in pay. Instead, the USWA leaders gave up the struggle for the shorter workweek. They settled for supplementary unemployment benefits-- the fund dried up later on--a wage increase and contracts that "guaranteed" pension, insurance and health benefits. Under capitalism, nothing is guaranteed. The bosses' promises are turning out to not be worth the paper they were written on. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is a federal agency that insures the pension plans of only 44 million workers and retirees. It has reported "a net loss of $11.4 billion, the largest in the pension-insurer's 28- year history." (Wall Street Journal, Jan. 31) It blamed much of the losses on bankrupt steel companies. Employers are refusing to increase their premiums to the PBGC. At the same time they are allowing their under-funded pension plans to go down the drain. The elimination of pensions and health benefits for those who worked a lifetime for their old-age security has become a priority in Wall Street and Washington. The Bush administration is part of this conspiracy. Funds are being ripped off from Social Security, Medicare and Medi caid to subsidize military aims to dominate the globe. The preemptive attack on the Iraqi people will divert billions of dollars from social services. "White House Proposals Would Shift Pension Burden to Individual Workers" was a headline in the financial pages of the Feb. 20 New York Times. It's a national disgrace that will soon be met by fierce resistance within the ranks of labor, as the anti-war movement integrates the heartbreaking issue of pensions and health benefits with the struggle against imperialist war. Retired steel workers and the millions of others who are being denied their old-age security constitute a powerful force in the fight for social and economic justice. They worked long and hard. They deserve better. [Neidenberg worked for over 15 years in the Lackawanna plant of Bethlehem Steel.] - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
