As political weapons are sharpened for another historic showdown over health care reform, it's important to talk about what this debate means for tens of thousands of workers like IBEW members Brenda Howington and Dick Rogers.

Howington, who started working as a telephone operator on an old cord board at Illinois Bell (AT&T) in 1972, serves as president of a retiree club for Downers Grove, Ill., Local 21. Five years after retiring, Howington was diagnosed with breast cancer and treated with chemotherapy. "Just knowing that my medical costs were covered by my union-negotiated benefit meant that I had one less thing to take care of as I came to grips with cancer," she said.

Howington's cancer is in remission, but now she's worried. AT&T, currently in negotiations with IBEW and CWA on new contracts, wants to severely reduce active and retiree health coverage. "AT&T's revenues for the fourth quarter of 2008 totaled $31 billion, and CEO Randall L. Stephenson took home over $11 million last year," says Howington. "It would be very hard to accept if they turn their back on us retirees."

It could also be self-defeating. AT&T is busy marketing Uverse, the company's new TV-phone-Web bundle, in the competitive market with Verizon and Comcast. That means building a bigger customer base.

But personal bankruptcies due to high medical bills are already skyrocketing in the U.S. and unemployment has yet to level off.

If Stephenson really wants to increase the market share of his company's new product, wouldn't it make more sense to use some of AT&T's big lobbying budget to push for a public health care option that can help to cover some of the 49 million Americans who currently have no health insurance and are forced to limit purchases of consumer services like Uverse?

Wouldn't it make more sense to support government policies that can bring down the costs of pharmaceuticals and health insurance than to pick a fight with dedicated workers and retirees like Howington?

The situation faced by Brenda Howington and thousands of AT&T workers is not unique. This issue of The Electrical Worker reports on highly-profitable utility companies that are also seeking to slash health care coverage for active and retired workers.

Dick Rogers, a member of Manchester, Maine, Local 1837, is a first-class service worker at Central Maine Power. CMP is a subsidiary of Energy East, which is owned by Spain-based Iberdrola, the world's fourth largest utility company.

Local 1837's contract with CMP expired on May 15. The company is demanding a big bite out of Rogers' and his co-workers' health insurance coverage. A member of the negotiating committee, Rogers is organizing informational picketing. He wants Maine citizens to know that if CMP slashes health care benefits, the burden could fall back on the state's taxpayers.

Jose Ignacio Sanchez Galan is the CEO of Iberdrola. Unlike Stephenson, his yearly compensation is kept secret. But Galan's contract with Iberdrola, covering his total compensation is nine pages long.

Back in Spain and in many other countries where Iberdrola has utility investments, health care insurance is a government-provided benefit.

Galan hires the best lobbyists when he is meeting resistance in getting permits for new utility construction. Instead of messing with workers in Maine and New York, why doesn't he assign some of his lobbying heavyweights to help win a public health insurance option here in the U.S.? Wouldn't that be a better way to bring down his company's insurance costs in the long haul?

Brenda Howington, Dick Rogers and millions of American workers deserve real health care reform, not a hard time from men who have money to burn.