Kenneth P. Bidlack v. Wheelabrator Corporation

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

This is a class action on behalf of retired employees of the Wheelabrator Corporation. They claim that collective bargaining agreements between Wheelabrator and the union that represented employees at Wheelabrator’s plant in Mishawaka, Indiana conferred upon the plant’s retired employees lifetime rights to certain health benefits — hence rights that survived the expiration in 1988 of the last collective bargaining agreement between the company and the union applicable to the Mishawaka plant, which Wheelabrator closed that year. The plaintiffs base the suit primarily on…