A coalition of retired steelworkers hoping to expand a nationwide fight for pension and health care security launched an operation in Maryland yesterday, attracting nearly 1,000 Baltimore-area retirees to a union hall on Dundalk Avenue.
ReUNION, an organization established in 2004 by the United Steelworkers of America and several U.S. steel companies, is eyeing retirees in industrial cities where factory life once dominated the local economy. The group has organized around health care, pension reform and trade policy issues affecting retirees of steel and other manufacturing industries. The volunteer group will lobby elected officials and attend rallies and mobilize others.
Organizers see the Baltimore area as a prime target because of the 20,000 Bethlehem Steel Corp. retirees - most of them veterans of the Sparrows Point mill in Baltimore County. Many lost their medical coverage in 2003 when Bethlehem Steel won approval to terminate health care and life insurance benefits for retirees and their dependents in bankruptcy court. (The steelworkers union offers a prescription drug benefit plan to those who lost health care coverage.)
Bethlehem Steel turned over its pensions to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the federal agency that insures private pensions.
Mittal Steel Co., the world's largest steelmaker, now operates the Sparrows Point plant. Mittal Steel, along with United States Steel and WCI Steel, are sponsors of the retirees advocacy group. Together with the United Steelworkers, the companies are interested in strengthening the U.S. steel industry.
"Most of the people have been through the trauma of the shutdown of the Bethlehem plant," said Dundalk's Don Kellner, president of the Senior Steelworkers of Local 9477, a retiree group. "They lost their health benefits, their life insurance and they got their pensions hacked. They just had enough."
Retirees listened to the organizers' presentation on why they should join the group - now active in 12 states - and the current state of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. The federal agency reported a deficit of more than $22 billion at the end of the 2005 fiscal year.
Federal lawmakers are expected in the coming months to resolve differences between Senate and House proposals that would shore up the nation's under-funded private pension system, said Ike Gittlen, a national coordinator for ReUNION.
Organizers scheduled another Baltimore meeting at noon Feb. 9 at the United Steelworkers Union Local 9477 building, 540 Dundalk Ave.
Despite the group's enthusiasm, one steel industry expert expressed skepticism about ReUNION's potential impact.
Peter Morici, a professor of international business at the University of Maryland, College Park, said the group doesn't have strength in numbers because retired steelworkers are spread out across the United States.
"It's not enough of a hot button issue to turn an election," he said.
hanah.cho@baltsun.com
