Nortel disabled pensioners screwed over!

After ten years the saga of Nortel still echoes down to us, and the end ain't in sight yet kids!

I can feel sorry for people who lost money when the stock fell, but that was their decision and ultimately they have only themselves to blame. (We have a few friends who lost either a lot, or in a few cases, everything they had, when Nortel stock imploded back in 2000.)

BUT!

Nortel's disabled seniors, who counted on their disability pension to survive, are now getting the boot too and this is about a heartless as you can get!

By Joan Bryden, The Canadian Press



OTTAWA - Nortel employees predicted a bleak future filled with illness, poverty, homelessness and even suicide after the Harper government signalled it will kill legislation aimed at protecting workers from losing their long-term disability benefits.

The disabled employees were distraught Thursday after Conservative senators used their majority on the Senate's banking committee to recommend that the upper house not proceed with the bill.

The red chamber, now dominated by Tories thanks to a raft of recent appointments by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is virtually certain to accept the committee's recommendation.


The bill, proposed by Liberal Senator Art Eggleton, sought to ensure that disabled Nortel employees would be given preferred status among creditors when the once-mighty telecommunications technology giant is finally dissolved.


And in the House of Commons, Industry Minister Tony Clement indicated he believes Conservative senators are doing the right thing, even though it means about 400 disabled Nortel employees will be cut off long-term disability benefits at the end of next month.


That assertion won him cries of "shame" from a small group of Nortel employees watching from the public gallery. They were escorted from the Commons, at least one of them in tears.


"It's going to be Christmas time when all this happens," Sue Kennedy, the court-appointed representative of the disabled Nortel employees, said in an interview later.

"I can't even think about Christmas, about next year, because I know how many people are going to be left in a desperate, desperate situation — out on the streets, literally. Some people are saying ... if nothing happens to help us, they don't want to live a life of poverty and a life where they can't pay for their medications, a life in pain."

Kennedy, a mother of two who suffers from multiple chemical sensitivity, said loss of the disability benefits will slash her family's income by two-thirds, and she said one former Nortel employee has already attempted suicide