ST. LOUIS (KMOX Radio) -- On a frigid day outside the building where they spent their healthy years working, a crowd of over a hundred retired Post-Dispatch workers protested plans of the new parent company, Lee Enterprises, to cancel their free health care in retirement.
Lee recently sent a letter to its Post-Dispatch retirees, informing them that as of January, it would no longer pay any portion of their health care premiums. They were offered to continue their coverage, some at a cost greater than their monthly pension checks. Union workers believe that's a violation of the promise of free healthcare for life made to them in past contracts.
Reporters, advertising executives, classified department workers and pressmen -- most with grey hair, a few leaning on canes -- stood in the street alongside a giant inflatable rat, accusing Lee Enterprises of corporate greed.
Retired reporter Yvonne Samuel, who had been with the paper 29 years, held a sign that said, "I'm a two-time cancer survivor. What do I do now? Please help me."
Samuel says she can't afford to pay the premiums that her retirement plan was paying. "If my cancer reoccurs, there is nothing that I can do, because I won't have the money to pay for it," Samuel said.
Lynn Fischer, who retired from the classified advertising department after 24 years spoke of her fear of surgeries and trips to the emergency room without coverage she can afford. "This puts me into a spin, because I have an eye disease and I don't see well, and it's hard for me to find work," Fischer said.
Retired advertising executive Kevin Weeks says his premiums would jump to $1,500 a month in order to maintain coverage for himself, his wife and college-age son. "The reason I came to the Post-Dispatch was because of the reputation of the Pulitzers," Weeks said, "I guess I was naive, but I felt like I would have a good career and a good end of my career."
The St. Louis Newspaper Guild is fighting the cuts in court. Union President Jeff Gordon says that Lee Enterprises has a moral obligation to honor the contracts it absorbed when it bought the Post-Dispatch.
"Stunning, really, it was bad enough that they were trying to force these people to pay 30 percent of their premiums when they weren't anticipating any costs," Gordon said, "but then for them to come back and say, 'well, we're giving you health coverage, you just have to pay for it all,' to me it's just mind-boggling. Lee was well aware of these obligations when the purchased the company."
KMOX contacted a spokesman for Lee Enterprises in Davenport, Iowa. Spokesman Dan Hayes says Lee has "no comment" on the protest.
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