Any link here to the Bush union busting economic policies.....

[whistle]

<snip>
October 24, 2004
Miners' Benefits Vanish With Bankruptcy Ruling
By JAMES DAO

MITHERS, W.Va., Oct. 22 - After 31 years, Carl Leake retired last year from the Cannelton mine near here with what he thought was a rock-solid promise of health insurance for life under his union contract. And a vital promise it was: this summer, his wife was found to have breast cancer and her treatment has cost more than $200,000.

But last month, a federal bankruptcy judge in Kentucky authorized Cannelton's owner, Horizon Natural Resources, to terminate its collective bargaining agreements with the United Mine Workers of America. And just like that, Mr. Leake's guaranteed health insurance was gone.

"I figure we could lose everything if we have to pay her bills," Mr. Leake, 61, said.

Mr. Leake is one of nearly 3,800 union coal miners and their dependents in West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana whose company-financed health insurance vanished with a swipe of Judge William S. Howard's pen last month. The union has pledged to cover their health insurance for six months. But beyond that, many workers are facing a future with no insurance or monthly premiums they can barely afford.

In a region where union benefits have long been the bedrock of middle-class life, Judge Howard's decision has been a shocking blow. Though similar decisions left thousands of unionized steelworkers without retiree benefits during the 1990's, the Horizon case marks the first time bankruptcy law has been used to void union contracts in the coal industry, experts said. Now, the mineworkers union is bracing for new bankruptcy filings by coal companies seeking to alter or eliminate collective bargaining agreements.
<more>

<link> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/national/24miners.html?th=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=

[theHandpuppet]

1. Here are some more...

http://www.uaw.org/atissue/atstory.cfm?atId=94
http://www.uaw.org/index_alternate.cfm
http://www.umwa.org/homepage.shtml (Follow links)

[izzie]

2. What can one say? The unions have little power right now.

Once things get really bad they will come into their own once more if people want to have some sort of country. If not the big corp will rule all.Look who pays the tax and it is not the guy cutting his stock check envelopes open 4 times a year. He got the break.

[whistle]

3. Uhummm, anyone who receives say anything in dividends....

...is totally exempt from paying taxes on those dividends and has been under the new Bush tax codes. So lets just take a modest earner of income say a single person with standard deductions under the age of 65 making $41,000.00 in income. Their federal income tax will be $5,256.00. Now if all of that income is from dividends (zero earned income, $41,000 from dividends) they pay nothing in the way of income taxes. If you are an owner of a sub-chapter S corporation (typical small business set-up) the profits from that corporation are distributed to you the owner as normal income, so you pay the normal income tax level after all deductions. So the waelthy as far as I call tell do not pay any income taxes of any kind on dividends, the redistribution of profits from corporations to it's share holders who get dividends (and that is not everyone who may own shares).