Here's the real problem with the steel industry's competitiveness:
legacy pensions. For instance:
The federal government terminated the woefully underfunded pension plan of beleaguered Weirton Steel yesterday as the company won court permission to dismiss nearly a third of its work force.
Weirton's pension plan had only 39 cents to cover every $1 in pension benefits it had promised workers and retirees, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. The federal agency insures pension benefits for 44 million Americans covered by more than 32,500 private sector pension plans.
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Like other bankrupt steelmakers, Weirton plans to reorganize by shedding millions of dollars of pension and retiree health-care liabilities, reducing its work force and seeking a lower-cost labor agreement.
So what's the big issue, then:
HEALTH CARE. The steel workers clearly don't support the Republicans
here:
Republican-controlled Congress has failed to provide relief from massive retiree health care obligations of the nation's steel industry.
Innaction by the Republican-led Congress has led to the termination of health benefits for thousands of retirees at the time they can least afford it.
The latest victims of this congressional inaction are the 95,000 retirees at the bankrupt Bethlehem Steel Corp., when the company announced that it planned to end health and life insurance benefits for retirees and their dependents on March 31, 2003. [Ed: now in litigation]
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.
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Racked by illegal steel imports and rising health care costs, some 39 steel companies have declared bankruptcy since 1997. More than 200,000 steel retirees have been left without any health coverage.
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The long-term solution to the problem is a federal national health care system, union leaders say.
Seems to me that Democrats have an opportunity to push for steel industry support while supporting steel consumers here.