It’s over and we won

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over, said Yogi Berra.

Well, we can finally report that the case of Renco vs. Workers World is over. The time in which this multi-billion-dollar conglomerate could file an appeal has expired and the judge’s decision dismissing the charge against us stands.

To backtrack: In February of this year, WW was notified by attorneys for the Renco Group, which at that time owned WCI Steel in Warren, Ohio, that an article we had written about the steelworkers’ pensions (“WCI Steel Bankruptcy Robs Workers’ Pensions,” WW, Feb. 14, 2006) was “false and defamatory” and that we should immediately retract the article and apologize to Renco or face legal action.

In the following week’s issue, we ran a second article (“You Be the Judge: Is Renco Robbing Steelworker Pensions?”) that stood by the points made in the first.

So the battle was on. Renco filed charges against Workers World newspaper, Workers World Party and reporter Brenda Ryan in New York State Supreme Court, charging us with “malicious, false and defamatory statement”—libel.

This struggle was not just about Renco and the workers at WCI Steel. The articles addressed the larger context.

In Judge Edward H. Lehner’s decision on Sept. 26 dismissing the libel charge, he wrote:

“The Feb. 14 article states that there is a ‘widespread campaign of corporations like United Airlines, Delphi Automotive Systems and Bethlehem Steel to use bankruptcy to steal workers’ pensions.’ It also mentions Delta Airlines, IBM and Alcoa taking steps to deprive workers of pensions and asserts that ‘[p]ensions are deferred wages’ and ‘now the brutal hand of capitalism wants to snatch away this hard-earned pay.’ The February 23 article states that the shortfall in pension plans is approximately $450 billion in the private sector and $300 billion in the public sector, and concludes that: ‘Only under workers’ control can (pensions) be guaranteed.’ Next to the ‘Workers World’ heading on the Party’s web site is the phrase ‘workers & oppressed people of the world unite.’”

The judge pointed out the political context of the articles because that went directly to the legal issue at hand: our use of the word “robbing.” Renco argued that we were charging them with a criminal act. Our attorneys argued that the statements were “protected opinion.”

The judge agreed, concluding that “[I]t is clear that the implication to the reasonable reader of the subject articles is not one of criminality by the stealing of pension funds. Rather, the articles discuss in an impassioned manner an area of public concern—that of alleged corporate underfunding of retirement obligations owed to workers, and how parts of corporate America are purportedly depriving workers of pension rights through bankruptcy proceedings.”

So does that mean that Renco and other corporations are not criminal?

Sadly, it is not a crime under U.S. law at this time for huge corporations like the ones mentioned above to use bankruptcy in order to shed contractual obligations to workers that include pensions, health coverage and other benefits won over decades of struggle and paid for out of the value these workers created through their labor.

It is not a crime punishable by law for the owners and investors in these companies to become obscenely wealthy while workers are being told after a lifetime of toil that there’s no money left for them.

Hundreds of billions of dollars that had been promised to workers so they could survive in their old age seem to have evaporated—yet it’s no mystery where it all has gone. As recent statistics show, the richest of the rich have never had it so good. The question is, how did the rich and their heirs get it “legally” when many of them never did an honest day’s work in their life?

What is considered legal under capitalism is the product of a legislative process dominated by big money. At one time racial segregation was “legal,” as the vile system of slavery had been earlier, until millions fought it and forced social change.

Most of the bills before Congress are generated first by corporate lobbyists or others who got their legal training working for big business. Often they are passed into law without the elected representatives even getting a chance to really read them. This is just one example of how the government winds up being of the rich and for the rich, even though elections are held every few years when the public gets to vote—usually for the candidates who have raised the most money to advertise their candidacy, since usually the sky’s the limit when it comes to how much can be spent on election campaigns in the United States.

It is possible to find much information about economic trends in the commercial media. Much of what we report in Workers World we first saw in major newspapers. But what you won’t find through the capitalist print or electronic media is a view of what workers and oppressed peoples can do to fight the horrible, but often legal, injustices inflicted on them every day.

That’s what our “impassioned” articles are about. That’s what we are going to continue to do.

Perhaps the owner of Renco, multibillionaire Ira Rennert, thought this case would bankrupt us, no matter the outcome. Defamation cases can be very, very expensive. Fortunately, we got expert legal representation pro bono from the media law firm Davis Wright Tremaine. Pro bono means the lawyers’ time is free, saving us potentially tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the length of the case. But the legal research to find an abundance of precedent rulings supporting free speech, which undoubtedly helped us win the case at such an early stage, was contracted to an outside firm.

So we have to pay for that, and the bill will be well over $10,000.

We’re asking you, our readers, to come through for us and contribute what you can to help clear this debt.

If enough people respond and we have any money left over, we pledge to put it to good use advancing workers’ struggles—for pensions, health coverage and a just society.