Citing the “life and death matters” at stake, a lawyer for the union representing workers at U.S. Steel Canada was in court yesterday seeking to reinstate retiree health benefits suspended last year amid the company’s restructuring proceedings.
The comments came as retirees of the troubled steelmaker are expressing deepening concern about the continued suspension of the retiree health benefits. “We work in heavy industry, a whole bunch of different chemicals,” Rolf Gerstenberger, a furnace operator who retired from the company in 2015 and a former president of United Steelworkers Local 1005, told Benefits Canada as proceedings began at the Ontario Superior Court in Toronto on Wednesday.
Read: The end of retiree benefits?
“We have people with mesothelioma. The asbestos and the different carcinogens was just part of the job. So that’s the part that really irks you. . . . It’s not like we were working in an office or something. We had all the dirty, dirty heat. This weather in the last month? We didn’t just walk in it. We had to go to work in it. The steel was 3000 degrees and outside it’s 90 degrees. We suffered through all of that and in the end, they’re using the [Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act] to take away our benefits.”
The retirees’ health benefits remain suspended, however, after Ontario Superior Court Judge Herman Wilton-Siegel adjourned the union’s motion to reinstate them on Wednesday. “Any resolution of a consensual nature will be better than anything this court imposes,” said Wilton-Siegel, who declined to set a date for a new hearing on the matter.
In October 2015, Wilton-Siegel approved the company’s bid to suspend benefit payments as part of its restructuring. Another key issue in the litigation over the company’s restructuring is the fate of the employees’ pensions.
Read: Retiree benefit plans shrinking quickly
Union lawyer Max Starnino took issue with the delay in considering the reinstatement of what he called other post-employment benefits, suggesting the issues “are literally life and death matters, and I don’t hyperbolize when I say that.”
“I can’t agree to any delay in the reinstatement of OPEBs,” he said at Wednesday’s hearing.
Nevertheless, he recognized that adjournment was necessary so U.S. Steel could review and file responding material and said he welcomed discussions with the company’s counsel.
Also postponed to an undetermined date is U.S. Steel Canada’s motion over its key employee retention plan, which involves hefty bonuses and raises so current staff stay with the company during its restructuring under the Companies’ Creditors’ Arrangement Act.
Read: United Steelworkers wins pension battle
“U.S. Steel Canada has been paying millions in retention bonuses to some people and they gave raises to salaried people just recently,” says Chris Ferri, a steelworker who retired in 2007. “They said they took our OPEBs because they couldn’t afford to pay them. If they can afford to pay raises and bonuses and all this kind of stuff, why don’t we have our OPEBs back? Why?”
Wilton-Siegel also extended U.S. Steel Canada’s creditor protection to Nov. 30 to give the company more time to continue talks with prospective buyers. The protection was due to expire on July 28, and parent company U.S. Steel wanted it extended only until August.
“The evidence before me does not warrant the imposition of a hard deadline,” said Wilton-Siegel.