DUMMERSTON, Vt. - It wasn't that long ago that the American workplace operated under a simple compact - in exchange for offering your employer 20 or 30 years of your labor, your employer would pay you a living wage and give you a pension when you retired.
Combined with Social Security and Medicare, this meant that old age was no longer a time to be feared. You could live out your final decades in a certain amount of dignity, knowing that you had a enough money to live on and health insurance to cover you when you got sick.
This system, sadly, doesn't exist anymore for most Americans. The new model of retirement looks a lot like what recently happened at Polaroid.
Unable to adapt to digital imaging and the decline of its instant photography business, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy in 2001. Just before it went bankrupt, the company canceled lifetime health care and insurance benefits for its retirees.
A group of retirees sued Polaroid to force the company to honor its commitments. They were, for the most part, unsuccessful.
In April, the remains of Polaroid were sold for $426 million. Polaroid chairman Jacques Nasser (if the name sounds familiar, he was at the helm of Ford during the spate of fatal accidents involving the Explorer SUV in 2000 that ended up costing the carmaker millions in lawsuits and lost sales) will receive $12.8 million for his shares in the company. CEO J. Michael Pocock will get $8.5 million.
And 6,000 Polaroid retirees will get $47 each.
Read more from Randolph T. Holhut, courtesy of The Smirking Chimp.
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