PBS Show Will Examine Retiree
Health Care Rip-Offs
March 10, 2005
Tune In - Friday, April 1 at 9:00 p.m. (check local listings)
The IBEW Journal featured an article in the January-February 2005 issue about IBEW retirees, who worked in Arizona copper mines, being taken to court by their employer, Asarco, because the company wants to stop paying their health care benefits. (See "Links" on
the right...)
On April 1, PBS’s popular newsmagazine, NOW, formerly hosted by Bill Moyers, currently by David Brancaccio, will probe this outrageous new tactic by corporations across the nation to deprive retired workers of their collectively bargained healthcare insurance.
http://www.pbs.org/now/series/
It’s a story that began in 1989 when health costs soared and corporations moved quickly to protect their bottom line by slashing benefits and shifting costs to retirees. Most companies can cut retiree benefits at will. For others, fine print in contracts makes it a little trickier.
This is where the latest plot twist is playing out in courts around the nation. The dictionary definition of lifetime is: "The period of time during which an individual is alive." Simple enough – if your company promised you benefits for life, you just need to be alive to receive them.
But it’s a difference of opinion over the legal definition of "lifetime" that is stirring up trouble for some former union workers. In recent cases, corporate lawyers are arguing that "lifetime" refers to the life of the contract, not the lifetime of the retiree. When those contracts expire, they argue, so does the promise of the benefits.
Tune in on April 1 to hear more of the details of this new scam. We guarantee that this show will make you angry. We are just as certain that you will not be alone. Well-researched TV shows and news stories can be disturbing, but their exposures are indispensable to building a more powerful labor movement to stand up for the rights and benefits of hard-working Americans.
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