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Disabled Nortel Workers Hobbled?
Scott Taylor of the Toronto Sun reports, Disabled Nortel workers hobbled:
Disabled
Nortel employees, just weeks away from losing their medical benefits
on Dec. 31, watched what appears to be their remaining lifeline
dissolve before their eyes Thursday.
Senator Art Eggleton's Bill
S-216 that would amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the
Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act fell in a partisan vote 6-5 in a
Standing Senate Committee hearing.
The
bill would have disabled employees leapfrog past common creditors when
companies that are self-insured go bankrupt. Without it, the Nortel
disabled employees will receive about a third of the current coverage.
The
end is coming for Jennifer Holley, who will see her income drop from
$3,000 to around $900 a month. The drugs she needs cost $400 on their
own leaving her $500 for everything else.
"Well, I'm going to be very poor," she said.
"We're all worried about what we're going to do after the new year."
Holley
said the emotional toll on some of her colleagues has been
devastating. Already in poor health, some will have to move from homes
specifically adapted for their condition to government housing or worse.
Fortunately, she owns her home in the Ottawa Valley outright.
Federal
Environment Minister John Baird said his government has tried to find a
solution but making a law retroactive to include the Nortel workers
would be impossible.
"We can't make laws retroactive because they
would be struck down immediately by the court as unconstitutional, and
I think some people are giving some false hope that Parliament could
do that."
Baird said such a law would equate to expropriation of the bond holders' assets.
"It's
almost akin to having $1,000 in the bank and your bank goes bankrupt.
You'd have access to your money before the tellers (get their)
pension."
The disabled workers are the only ones objecting to a
$57-million sunset deal negotiated by a court-appointed monitor with
the company.
Under that deal, Nortel agreed to fund long-term
disability benefits along with health, life, dental and pension
benefits until Dec. 31.
"The Conservative members put a one-page
draft report on the agenda and were able to carry it by a 6 - 5 vote,"
Eggleton said. "It says that the bill should not be proceeded with."
However, Eggleton said he will continue the fight.
"I
told them that 34 out of 54 countries and all our major trading
partners have this kind of provision or something similar to protect
the people on long-term disability."
Caroline Van Hasselt of the WSJ reports, Nortel Disabled-Workers Bill Stalled In Canadian Senate:
Canada's
Senate, the upper chamber of parliament, continues to postpone a vote
on a proposed law that is intended to prevent long-term disabled
workers from being treated as unsecured creditors in corporate
liquidations.
Bill S-216, which moves disabled
employees up the queue to creditor status, is meant to help 375 Nortel
Networks Corp. employees, who suffer from long-term disabilities such
as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, who will lose their
benefits at year's end because of a court-approved former employees'
settlement this year.
The
proposed legislation has stalled at committee level because of
concerns expressed by Conservative-appointed senators under direction
from the Canadian government. Industry Minister Tony Clement said last
week that Bill S-216 would cause litigation because of the
court-approved Nortel settlement agreement.
"They
have no data to support it. If you look at what they've presented, it
just doesn't stand up to scrutiny," Greg McAvoy, a Nortel employee on
long-term disability, said. "The Conservatives have been instructed to
vote it down. It's bad news for us."
"Who would believe that this would happen in Canada?," he said.
Toronto-based Nortel was North America's largest maker of
telecommunications equipment. Since it filed for bankruptcy protection
in Canada and the U.S. in 2009, Nortel has been auctioning off its
assets.
The bill aims to
protect Canada's workers from losing their disability benefits by
increasing their priority on claims to an insolvent employer's assets.
"I believe what Nortel did was not right," Conservative-appointed
Sen. Vim Kochhar said in the Senate Thursday. "I am prepared to support
the bill if for one minute I could be convinced that this bill will
result in the desired results."
Friday marks the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, a day Kochhar said in the Senate should be celebrated.
Without the bill's passage, which would need to go through the House
of Commons, the Nortel disabled say they will be pushed into poverty.
"Surely our society has not become so revolting that our most
vulnerable citizens are sued and kicked to the curb and forgotten," said
Peter Hoyle, a reverend at Halton Presbytery of the United Church of
Canada, in an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Industry
Minister Tony Clement and Senate Leader Marjorie LeBreton.
A group of the disabled Nortel workers filed an appeal to an earlier court ruling.
"We've been trying to get something moving here for quite some time
and they have just refused to do anything," McAvoy said. "There's a lot
of money involved. There's a lot of lawyers who make a lot of money in
insolvency cases. There's a whole establishment that we're fighting
both on the legal and the political side."
I recently referred to the plight of Nortel's disabled.
Diane Urquhart and others have been instrumental fighting for their
rights. I understand why creditors are squeamish about this case, but I
also think they're making way too much fuss over this bill. Employees
who suffer from long-term disabilities deserve to have some financial
peace of mind as they cope with their illness. There is a moral
dimension to this case and I agree with the comments made by Peter Hoyle
of the United Church of Canada. It's unacceptable and reprehensible
that our laws can't defend the rights of our most vulnerable citizens.
Public pensions should also voice their concern over this case and do
the right thing by supporting Bill S-216.
»
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So, change the law the right damned way- have it understood that any new credit contracts make it explicit that disability payees stand in front of the new creditors. Trying such retroactive reordering of priority stinks on even an ethical level, let alone the legal one. If you want to give money to "deserving" recipients- give your own money first.
assclowns like you make me laugh
"... allocated in a way that increases efficiency ..."
yet you'll be the first to cry when you have been "re-allocated"
keep your tough talk at home where you're venereal, I mean venerated
sh*t head
Did I hear the individual say "government housing" So, if someone has a chronic disability in Canada, can they get housing plus treatment? In some european countries, it would be assumed that this would be entirely the responsibility of the national health plan? Not in Canada?
Also, why should the other creditors of Nortel be stuck with the bill, which is what you are asking for? Is this an expense that should be born by other small investors who are already getting clobbered by the Nortel bancruptcy?
I am sorry for this problem, but if you have socilized medicine, isn't the idea that folks who are impoverished get the care they need from the govrnment. Whould medicaid in the states cover such a problem?
Looking around at people who get services from Medicare such as blepharoplasty, I ask... doesn't Medicare cover just about everything under one context or other, and some can get some things while others who need other things...can't?
Blepharoplasty For Medicare Plans
Apr 1, 2010 ... Blepharoplasty is covered when Medicare coverage criteria are met. Treatment/ Application Guidelines: The following guidelines are based on ...
https://www.oxhp.com/secure/.../blepharoplasty_medicare_410.html - Cached
When times were "normal" people accepted the warm embrase of company and government, willing to believe the lines they were told about how well they would be taken care of and what a wonderful retirement they would enjoy.
During this season of the economic cycle I believe we (have and) will see continued disappointments of those expectations as cash flow dries up and the aforementioned companies and goverments begin to expropriate every last nickel and dime from any pool of money sitting around that does not have teeth to defend itself.
Saw this first hand in my AO in the 80's, local tannery was bought out. The new owners pillaged the retirement funds and everything else and then declared Chapter 7 bancrupcy, leaving ALL the retirees with NOTHING of what they were promised.
And this was all completely legal and there was no recourse.
State, County and Town workers WILL feel the pinch of the 20-40% reduction in revenues.
Bandits Without Borders...operating widely everywhere
Someone who says we have to produce before we can consume, and we have to respect the rule of law, is called sick, heartless, amoral, and a monster.
The mob who think only for the range of one moment, now that the money has got here, how best can we take it and distribute it, who sacrifice right to expediency and need, are considered good, moral, caring, etc.
That's what's sick.
Yep. The looters and moochers are everywhere.
We could do 500 per month if we had to.
It will be a existinal life style without any morale or prospect for escape for a very long time.
At least here in America there is SSdi from Social Security. They would have a fighting chance with the medical issues there.
Very sad news indeed. When it happens in the United States one can hope that it is just the crazyness of Americans which trait has been well documented for centuries. But to see it in Canada with Nortel Disability and the Netherlands in Wikileaks and so on indicates that it is global just like it was in 1932. God help us.
I thought they pretty much disarmed our northern neighbors, precluding shooting their knees out so they can empathize.
They DESERVE??? What's deserve got to do with it? Haven't you learned yet that life is not fair?
Resources need to be allocated in a way that increases efficiency. End of discussion.
a serious enough car accident might change your twisted mind.
What an angry person you must be.
You deserve to be known as the biggest and heartless amoral asshole around.
Please, stop breathing for the next 10 minutes.
you're sick. god help you.
So what should these pensioners do? Seek out and shoot their nearest ex-Nortel executive, and be treated to 3 squares a day and proper medical care in Canada's jails?
Seriously, that's what this amounts to, because Canada doesn't punish white collar criminals such as Nortel's former executives who robbed the company blind.
PITZ said:
""Seek out and shoot their nearest ex-Nortel executive, and be treated to 3 squares a day and proper medical care in Canada's jails?""
Perfect, and it would be helpful
back in early 1945, Okinawa, the Japanese suicide pilots, guided-missile effectiveness per warrier, per gallon of gas, per otherwise obsolete airplane, per bomb carried...VERY VERY effective...
in 1979 - 2010, per warrior, per pound of plastic explosive, per number killed/injured, and on a per mission basis...VERY VERY effective...
doe not underestimate the power of a single warrior willing to go all in, knowing he will be effective, not a life wasted by a random piece of flying lead, or part of a pack of 20,000 in an 'over the top, tommyboys...head on charge against germans with machine guns...in 1916? was it..
Oklahoma FBI building, a couple of men, using agricultural nitrate, properly mixed with enhancers and detonators...very effective.
Lebanon 1982? whatever, the 200 marines killed by ONE suicide killer, eventuating in USA completely withdrawing from the battle ground...
the Japanese bushido code...you don't surrender, period...iwo jima Feb 1945? almost 20,000 would not surrender, died, held back USA total Pacific concentrated Naval + land fighting Marines...
the list, compiled by the USA CIA and then strangely acquired by ben Ladin...a 1000+ sure thing angry men, troubled and trouble causing...World Wide...and just 12 or so of them, dedicated to a military goal, indeed acheived that goal 09/11/2001, with minimal money, manpower...Spirit of the Corps = motivation to the death is what counts...
so, HEY, if you are disabled, quality of life is shit, and you figure actuarily you will die soon enough...well GET TO IT, while there is time...plenty of targets, don't focus on the TOP, hit the middle, create TERROR...it works..and don't assume you need firearms at all, power fools, kitchen knives, box cutters, 5 gallon gas cans, one time bravery...assume you will die, so do not fear at all
NOW, about Jail? WELL Canadian incarceration shouldn't really be all that bad, free food, warm lodgings, plenty of paperbacks to read, trustee status if you really really want to walk around, outside your assigned cell, for a longer period of time, and socialize...and possibily a heros ranking 'status', depending on how much theatre/style was involved in doing the deed..of course you most likely will be killed, BUT you never know..we ALL die sooner, or LATER, no matter the ways and means...make that death 'meaningful' 'fulfilliing'
you could become a book/movie, famous even...make your story interesting..
lol, ok. fed building brought down by a truck bomb that didnt
damage any other adjacent structures.
suuuuure.....
Speaking of govt;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGQOceUvH9c
A very very humorous, artistic rework...politics does motivate...pretty much depicts the knee-jerk Republican View...
Liberal, democrat, republican or conservative; just convenient labels and all the same as far as I can see. If one party isn't fucking the constituent then it is the other party having at its ass.
Agreed, in bad taste.
But I'd like to see the knee-jerk Democrat view. I would imagine it involving a goose-stepping lil' Bush dressed in an SS uniform, lil' Cheney choking the life out of a litter of puppies and a tarted up, special-needs Sarah Palin.
That would be a good start.