Notification concerning the lawsuit against the Beacon Journal over the changes made in BJ retirees' health care coverage:
U.S. District Judge David D. Dowd held a status conference today in the White, et al. v. Akron Beacon Journal Publ. Co., et al. case. He set a hearing for October 26, 2009 at 3:00 pm on the Plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction. That is, Judge Dowd will decide whether to enjoin the Akron Beacon Journal from failing to pay the promised health-care benefits to retirees of the Typographers Union. The hearing will be at the U.S. District Courthouse in Akron, and the Plaintiffs, Regina and Dave White, Ruth and Tom West, and Hugh Downing would welcome all interested retirees and their spouses to attend to show their support.
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To see the original story on the lawsuit, click on the headline.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
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4 comments:
Hopefully you lose. We've all had to make sacrifices. You should too, you greedy old bastards.
Nice way to respect your elders, who made sacrifices for YOU. When someone is promised something in a contract, the other side doesn't get to take it away without consequence. What the BJ did--taking away promised prescription coverage--is no different from stealing from someone's 401K account. The account belongs to the beneficiary, not to the company. That's not a "sacrifice." That's a rip off.
The sacrifices you may have to made were neogoiated and put there by the 'old folks' in the first place. How do you think the company had something for you to sacrifice?
No one ever put a gun to the heads of company persons agreeing to the terms of a contract.
Management loves it when its workers don't understand that protecting the rights of one segment is important to all segments. Long after we stopped having children I supported maternity benefits because that's what union members do. And the retirees gave up part of their pay raises every year to get the health care benefits that they were promised. These amounts are on record at each negotiations and were paid for jointly by the union and the company, which each got copies of what each item added to or subtracted to the contract cost. Management would love for every person to think he/she can go it alone. It saves them tons of money.
The takebacks, despite written guarantees not to do it, ARE a form of thievery.
Retirees, incidentally, are VERY sympathetic to current BJ employees. It is a situation that we abhor on your behalf. We know that you are trying your best, as we did when we worked for the Beacon Journal.
I know it's common for "old folks" to bring up John Knight, but Jack was a newspaperperson's newspaperman. He felt, and acted like, both management and employees were in the great newspaper adventure together. Once Tony Ridder came into the picture, that attitude died.
And now an international company controls what happens to current employees and retirees. Are there really any current non-management BJ employees or BJ retirees who are happy with that situation?
But, as current and retired newspaper folks know, debate is healthy. That's why we were/are bulwarks in the First Amendment for decades.
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