The announcement nearly doubles the number of workers whose health benefits have been eliminated following liquidation of bankrupt steel companies. LTV Steel Corp. ended medical insurance for its 85,000 retirees and their dependents after that company went belly-up one year ago.

Bethlehem, which filed for bankruptcy in October 2001, said the benefits would end March 31 as part of a deal for a buyout by the Cleveland-based International Steel Group. The bosses cited rising pension and health-care costs as the reasons for dumping workers’ medical coverage.

Today the company employs 12,000 workers, down from 300,000 at its peak. "Expectations of lifelong benefits were made during an era when health-care costs were lower and the company’s financial condition was stronger," stated Bethlehem chief executive Robert Miller.

Leo Gerard, the president of the United Steelworkers union, blamed "illegal imports and unfair trade" for the wave of bankruptcies in the industry. The union’s website calls for government subsidies to the U.S. steel bosses so that "American steelworkers can receive the same kinds of protections" that their counterparts in Europe, Asia, and Latin America "have enjoyed for years."

More than 30 U.S. steel companies have gone broke since 1997, including Bethlehem, National Steel, Wheeling-Pittsburgh, and LTV, reported Fortune magazine on July 8 of last year. Over the past two decades the number of workers in the U.S. steel industry has shrunk from nearly 300,000 to 151,000.

through company downsizing, layoffs, and other cost-cutting measures.

The slump in the steel industry, observed the big-business publication, has been "arguably the worst downturn for American steelmakers since the Great Depression."

Despite the massive layoffs, steelworkers are producing 50 percent more steel than they did 20 years ago. The bosses have been squeezing more production out of workers through speedup as well as the introduction of new technology.  
 
 
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