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When a deputy sheriff came to his door with a court summons, George Kneifel, a retiree in Union Mills, Ind., was mystified. His former employer was suing him.

The employer, beverage-can maker Rexam Inc., had agreed in labor contracts to provide retirees with health-care coverage. But now the company was asking a federal judge to rule that it could reduce or eliminate the benefit.

Many companies have already cut back company-paid health-care coverage for retirees from their salaried staffs. But until recently, employers generally were barred from touching unionized retirees' benefits because they are spelled out in labor contracts. Now, some are taking aggressive steps to pare those benefits as well, including going to court.

In the past two years, employers have sued union retirees across the country. In the suits, they ask judges to rule that no matter what labor contracts say, they have a right to change the benefits. Some companies also argue that contract references to "lifetime" coverage don't mean the lifetime of the retirees, but the life of the labor contract. Since the contracts expired many years ago, the promises, they say, have expired too.

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But social security is still considered by ultra-right rightists to be a communist plot to undermine liberty and apple pie. The right wing economic experiment conducted in a human rights vacuum in Chile is still touted as a success in certain Republican circles. They just avoid making soc-sec an issue at election time in favour of fervent nationalism. Now it's time for Dubya to spend his "political capital" handed him by 51% of 65% of eligible voters and working on the premise that the other 35% were just too satisfied with fascism to even bother voting. God help them down there.

[ 11 November 2004: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Newt blew his credibility as an upstanding Republican when American's found out he was a serial adulterer. Apparently, they were fine with him being a chickenhawk and cheer leader for military industrial complex.

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I prefer to think of him as a cheer-tator, as "leader" implies democratic choice.

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Originally posted by Puetski Murder:
You gotta love the U.S. If they're not winning the war du jour, they declare a domestic war on inefficiency or similar junk. Good thing they're reducing retirement benefits. They were almost on the brink of something terrible - like a welfare state.

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Ya, make that "corporate" welfare state.

With "capitalism" (or socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the working poor), profits and worker desperation are maximized while more and more wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few. They're chiselling away at rights we've had to fight tooth and nail for ever since the phrase, "Let'em eat cake", was rewarded with the slice.

"...When I behold a factious band agree
To call it freedom when themselves are free;
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw,
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law;
The wealth of climes, where savage nations roam,
Pillaged from slave to purchase slaves at home; ..." - Oliver Goldsmith
[ Message edited by: Fidel ...because I cant spe;l worth a damn. Ok? ...

[ 17 November 2004: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by Fidel:
With "capitalism" (or socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the working poor), . . .

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Originally posted by Cougyr:

Notice that while Bush wants Americans to dig deep for their war on terror, when it comes to things that matter for people at home, he wants poeple to volunteer.

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