The suit, filed in New York State Supreme Court, alleges that the weekly newspaper defamed Renco in two articles published in February.

The first article was headlined “WCI Steel bankruptcy robs workers’ pensions.” Renco claims that a sentence in this article, which said, “After robbing the pension fund, Renco now claims it can cover the fund’s shortfall,” is “false and defamatory,” according to the suit the Renco Group filed.

Attorneys representing the company, from the legal firm Arnold & Porter LLP, had notified Workers World that Renco might take legal action if the paper did not withdraw the article from its website and apologize to the company. In response, Workers World ran a second article, headlined “Is Renco robbing steelworkers pensions?” It quoted Deirdre Griswold, the paper’s editor, saying, “The paper is standing by the article unconditionally and refuses to accept Arnold & Porter’s ultimatum. The article accurately described their client as robbing the pension funds.”

At the time Renco was engaged in an effort to shield itself in the bankruptcy court from its pension obligations to the workers at WCI Steel in Warren, Ohio. This would have left the pension fund—already underfunded to the tune of $117 million—in the hands of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), a quasi-government agency that takes over a portion of pension plans left behind in bankruptcies. If Renco had succeeded, the PBGC said in February, “the pension plan would have been abandoned to a liquidating corporate shell with no assets.”

Griswold told the Militant that the aim of the suit is to intimidate those who speak out against corporations like Renco. “A lot of people are using this kind of language with respect to the things that are happening to their pensions—words like ‘theft,’ ‘robbed,’ ‘steal,’” Griswold said. “And they are angry. This has affected workers in the airlines, steel, mining, and many other industries.”

When contacted, the Renco Group referred this reporter to attorney Peter Haveles of Arnold & Porter.

Haveles said the case had nothing to do with free speech. “Renco is not suing Workers World for its speech,” he said. “It is suing Workers World for its false statement.”

In their motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed May 25, attorneys at Davis Wright Tremaine, who represent Workers World and the other defendants, disagree. This is a “free-speech litigation,” they say. The right to express opinion and use “rhetorical hyperbole,” they argue, is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and similar provisions in the state constitution.

“Workers World was obviously using the word ‘robbing’ in a rhetorical fashion to express its opinion that WCI’s bankruptcy—which Renco initiated—led to the unfortunate situation that workers’ pensions would suffer as a consequence,” the defendants’ attorneys argue. “No reasonable reader could construe the articles as suggesting that Renco literally purloined money from the workers’ pensions.”

In March, Renco agreed to a settlement in which it remained responsible for the pension fund. The fund, Renco states in its suit against Workers World, “is underfunded due to circumstances beyond the control of Renco,” such as “stock market performance earlier this decade” and “a change in formula for benefits.”

While the pension benefits remain intact for now, the fight by steelworkers against cutbacks at WCI Steel continues. Workers began informational picketing outside the plant May 25 to demand the company, which has emerged from bankruptcy under new ownership, take steps to ensure safety as it carries out a reorganization that includes speedup, said a Steelworkers union official.

“We’ve averaged one injury a day in the first 18 days of the reorganization,” Denny Brubaker, international staff representative for the United Steelworkers, told the Militant. Through voluntary buyouts, he said, the company is seeking to reduce the workforce from 1,250 to 1,000 while maintaining the same production levels.

According to an article in the May 26 issue of the Tribune Chronicle, which is published in Warren, Ohio, Tim Roberts, a spokesman for WCI Steel, denied that the job combinations were contributing to unsafe conditions. “Safety is our number one goal,” he told the paper.

Brubaker pointed out that the entire steel industry has undergone a top-to-bottom reorganization. “We had 39 bankruptcies in basic steel between 2000 and 2004,” he said. “LTV was the lead off, then Bethlehem and National went down. Now these companies are really making good money. And we want to make sure some of it stays in the plant.”  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home