Dear Editor,
A group from Athens plans to drive SE on Rt. 33 for 45 minutes to Ravenswood W.Va. to support a group that has been camped out in tents day and night to restore the health insurance coverage they paid for. The Century Aluminum plant closed down in 2009, announced nine months later that it would terminate health benefits for retirees eligible for Medicare, then said four months later that they would stop paying for retirees who weren’t yet eligible for Medicare. It is part of a pattern documented by Wall Street Journal investigative reporter Ellen E. Schultz in her new book “Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers.”
We will join them on Monday February 20. (If the roads are not easily drivable we will go Feb. 27 instead.) We will car pool from the Athens Southside Park at 1 p.m. The park is between Rt. 682 and the OU Inn. Turn off Richland onto Dairy Lane and go to the parking lot on the right. We will return to Athens by 5 p.m. Things the workers would appreciate: fresh fruit, coffee, non-perishable food, paper products such as plates and plastic forks.
More information is available at www.centuryaluminumretirees.com. They are also on Facebook at occupycenturyaluminum.
Jan Griesinger,
Athens
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