by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt
Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), as reported in the Wall Street Journal, has introduced legislation that would put the burden of underfunded union pension plans on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the equivalent of the FDIC, and have taxpayers pick up the tab. However, Casey and the others [...]

by James Hendricks, Esq.
Business owners with union contracts, pay attention. Companies that lay off workers and have partial withdrawal liability may find themselves faced with a new but old weapon being resurrected by union pension fund counsel.
There is a little known provision in ERISA that allows a union pension fund to seek injunctive relief for [...]

by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt
The Illinois legislature recently increased the remedies available to employees under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act (WPCA). The amendment, which takes effect January 1, 2011, strengthens an employee’s ability to bring claims against employers who fail to timely pay an employee’s wages, final compensation or wage [...]

by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt
The new home building market is showing no improvement. “The guys who were hoarding cash are now showing up to buy finished land. There still is no economic reason to buy raw land, because finished land is cheaper than the cost of improving raw land, even if you [...]

by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt
Good news. Steel sales are good and they are going for domestic manufacturing of automobiles for export to China. GM is the beneficiary of this large increase in Chinese buys. The hot brands that the Chinese want are the Chevy Malibu and Buick Regal.
These export sales are enabling [...]

by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt
In addition to other announced asset sales, what we are told is that BP is leaving North America. Between the Gulf of Mexico disaster, problems with their N.A. pipelines, the Texas City refinery explosion a few years ago, other liability issues, and a large scale public relations attacks [...]

by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt
June was not a good month for the local steel industry. The word on the street in (Northwest Indiana) the mills is that they are out of orders. They are going to complete their projects and then cutback again. Orders for raw production of steel simply dried up [...]

by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt
Wonder why there are fewer ads promoting new homes for sale? Or, why more homebuilders are going out of business? The reason is the same all across the country; no one is buying new construction. According to the Greater Chicago Market Report, a 35-year old cooperative activity report [...]

by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt
The word from the construction trades is all bad. Previous forecasts of a summer recovery have simply not panned out. The reason, the banks not lending and jobs continue to dry up and commercial construction projections continue to worsen.
Most building trades contractors are reporting that they have no [...]

by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt
While the economy is slow, the Midwestern steel industry is going into a modernization cycle, to prepare with cautious optimism for an expected economic expansion.
Currently steel manufacturing giant Arcelormittal owns 10% of the global steel market and they want more. Their preferred method of increasing market share is [...]