For 600,000 steelworkers and their families to be threatened with the loss of their pensions and health care by the steel barons is an outrage. It's a similar story for miners being denied access to black lung benefits by the coal bosses in cahoots with the government, seeking to impose ever-more restrictive requirements.

Under the capitalist system working people have no value for the bosses unless they're at work producing surplus value. The fact that steelworkers and other working people are living years past the age of retirement is viewed by the bosses as simply a drain on their profits. This fact alone speaks volumes about the social and political bankruptcy of the capitalist system.

Many of the same steel companies that claim they can't afford to pay health and pension benefits to steelworkers have also been seeking to rid themselves of obligations to coal miners on their payroll. Recent court decisions have allowed coal companies to stop paying into the Combined Benefit Fund for miners. Of the top five companies that contribute to this fund, three--U.S. Steel, LTV, and BethEnergy Mines--are, or in the recent past have been subdivisions of, major steel companies.

The capitalist rulers seek to impose on individual families and workers the responsibility for social services that should be organized and taken care of by society as a whole. But the bosses, with backing from the trade union officialdom, have tied workers' "benefits" to the profitability of a particular employer or the well-being of the industry in which they're employed. In good times such a system appears to work for those lucky enough to belong to a union. But as the capitalist system sinks into deeper crisis--with more collapses like Enron on the horizon and bankruptcies like those occurring throughout the steel industry--the entire setup spells disaster for working people.

In backing the steel bosses' demand for a government bailout to save "our" industry and "our" jobs, the trade union bureaucracy has betrayed the fight that needs to be waged to meet the social security needs of the entire working class. Rather than tying health and pension benefits to the ups and downs of a particular capitalist company, the labor movement must fight for nationwide, government-guaranteed lifetime entitlements for all. This should include cradle-to-grave health care, retirement benefits, and coverage for disabled workers and their families, as well as national unemployment insurance at a livable level and funding for education and child-care needs.  
 
 
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