Over the course of the past year and a half, we’ve read many heartbreaking tales of Nortel pensioners and disabled workers in a desperate struggle to hang on to benefits in the wake of the company’s bankruptcy.
The most recent comes from pensioner John Tyson of Ottawa, whose editorial in the Ottawa Citizen attacks members of Canada’s Parliament for their failure to “represent and support the constituents within their ridings."
Tyson said he’s written to his MPs numerous times since January 2009, but has been discouraged by responses full of “deflections, double-speak and ambivalence." Tyson says the government representatives are actually putting the blame on the ex-workers, making him “wonder if [he] is dancing with demagogues who simply don’t give a damn."
Harsh words, but no so much when you consider the huge number of Nortel pensioners in Canada will lose benefits later this year. Some will even have to sell their homes to have enough money in their retired years.
Tyson appeals to the MPs’ desire to be re-elected, telling them they’ll be in danger of losing their own jobs if they don’t act now.
“Will they continue to succumb to powerful lobbyists," Tyson writes, “or will we be abandoned as disposable victims of the unconscionable harm inflicted by the current bankruptcy laws?
Nortel, a one-time giant in the telecommunications equipment industry, filed for bankruptcy in January 2009. The company itself has been widely criticized for bad management, large payouts to executives and a poor handling of worker benefits.
