(Just heard about this on the Ed Schultz Show)
If you think there is nothing you can do – you are wrong.
Read this story of determined 99%-ers.
Read about the history of the story here:
We are the approximately 500 families, who after working for many years at the Ravenswood Works under various aluminum company names, who met the contractual requirements to retire with lifetime Insurance and Prescription benefits, each based on the contract benefits that were in effect at the time of retirement. The executives at Century Aluminum Company unilaterally made the decision to modify these contractual obligation by terminating these benefits to increase their profit margins and apparently to reward themselves with larger bonuses. This resulted in not only wiping out of Insurance and Prescription benefits but also a large portion, if not all, of the retiree pensions due to having to spend their pension money on insurance or try to survive without coverage.
This is an example of Corporate Greed at its very worst!
Read more about them here -
this piece that goes into some detail of the hardships that this has caused.
this piece that goes into some detail of the hardships that this has caused.
The retirees labored their entire lives for wages and pensions comparably lower than those of other aluminum workers. They did it believing they made those sacrifices in exchange for good, lifelong health coverage. Over the past two years, however, Century evicted them, about 540 retirees altogether, from the insurance plan.
Though Century failed to fulfill its obligation to pay for retiree health care, it handed its last CEO, Logan W. Kruger, $4.9 million in 2010. That’s twelve times more than Americans pay their president, the leader of the free world. Century gave Kruger another $6.2 million to leave last November. Still, he’s suing for $20 million on top of that. Century also is defending against a lawsuit filed for the retirees by the United Steelworkers (USW) union, which represented most of the Century workers.
Or this version form HuffPO
On Dec. 18, a dozen retirees, men and women in their 60s, 70s, even 80s, began occupying a median strip along Route 33 in front of the closed Century Aluminum smelter in Ravenswood, W.Va. In tents and under tarps, a small group stays overnight, despite hypertension, arthritis and other old age ailments. One has suffered a stroke.
These vulnerable people expose themselves to weather extremes although some have no health insurance at all. Century cancelled it. That's why they're occupying Century.
The retirees labored their entire lives for wages and pensions comparably lower than those of other aluminum workers. They did it believing they made those sacrifices in exchange for good, lifelong health coverage. Over the past two years, however, Century evicted them, about 540 retirees altogether, from the insurance plan.
The betrayal burns. Executives at Century, corporate 1 percenters, committed the same sort of treachery that is being condemned by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators representing the victimized 99 percent across the country. Thus the retirees adopted the grandchildren's protest tactic of encampment.
and it is not the last time it will happen.
And, yes they are correct, YOU could be next.
But – it may be the first time there has been an occupation.
#Occupy
