Allegheny Technologies broke a streak of 10 consecutive quarterly losses in early 2004. A spectacular transformation ensued, generating profits of $1.3 billion over the past 10 quarters and turning a $3 stock into a blue chip that topped $115 prior to Wall Street's recent funk.

The metals maker's extreme makeover has shareholders smiling. But Tom Shade, David Warne and Nathaniel Miljus aren't shareholders.

And they aren't smiling.

At about the same time as Allegheny's Phoenix rose from the ashes, they and other salaried retirees were told they would lose company-sponsored health insurance in 2010. As part of weaning them off the benefit, salaried retirees have been paying any benefit costs above what the company paid in 2004.

"I'm sure it was gloom and doom when they wrote this letter, but obviously things have turned around since then," says Mr. Miljus, 67, who worked for the company for 35 years until his position in the purchasing department was eliminated in 2000.

"It's staggering the profits they're making today," the Upper St. Clair resident says.

Mr. Shade, 74, a former rolling mill superintendent at the company's Washington plate mill, is more blunt.

"We feel we've been cheated," says the Washington resident, who retired in 1996 after working 18 years for the company and Jessop Steel, which Allegheny acquired in 1993.

Their lament is a familiar refrain to old-school workers who believed it when paternal employers told them they would be taken care of. Whether they worked for Allegheny Technologies, General Motors, AT&T or another industrial icon, the unwritten promise -- maybe unwritten premise is more accurate -- was that a pension and retiree health-care benefits were forever.

But things change. One cause of industrial America's dilemma is the fact that many of its overseas competitors pay less and don't offer the package of fringe benefits U.S. workers used to take for granted.

Even though Allegheny executive Terry L. Dunlap told salaried retirees in October 2003 that "access to quality health care has been and continues to be an important part of our employee benefit plans," eight months later the company reached a different conclusion.

"The escalating costs of health care in the U.S. prohibit us from continuing to provide these benefits beyond Jan. 1, 2010," Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer L. Patrick Hassey wrote in a June 24, 2004, letter to salaried retirees.

If there is a humane way of doing these things, Allegheny tried. The decision coincided with new Medicare prescription drug benefits. And the company will provide a $3,300 annual pension supplement in 2010 and beyond until retirees who aren't eligible for Medicare qualify when they turn 65.

Mr. Hassey's letter spurred salaried retirees to organize and determine whether anything can be done. The initial group of about 50 -- minus two who died -- has been whittled down to about two dozen who put up $100 each for an attorney.

"We've been doing our homework and learning a lot. Unfortunately, a lot of it is bad news," says Mr. Warne, 70, who retired in 2001 after 28 years at Allegheny and Jessop.

Mr. Warne lives on a former cattle farm in South Franklin and occasionally sells parcels of the 80-acre property for extra cash. His wife Martha, 68, suffers from myelofibrosis, a blood disorder treated with $1,800 weekly shots, $2,400 in monthly pills and regular transfusions. Because of her condition, Mr. Warne chose the higher premium health plan offered for the time being by Allegheny. Nearly half of his $1,000 monthly Jessop pension pays his share of the premium.

He shudders at the thought of what insurance will cost in 2010.

"The numbers become so insurmountable ... there's not very much you can do. We are in a position where there is no time to save up," Mr. Warne says.

Michael J. Healey, their Pittsburgh attorney, wrote Allegheny a letter in May expressing "serious concerns about the legal propriety" of taking away health coverage.

Executive Vice President Jon D. Walton responded July 20, citing a succession of benefit booklets distributed to employees dating back to 1983 in which the company reserved the right to amend or terminate benefit plans.

"It is without doubt that the changes were within the company's legal capacity," Mr. Walton wrote.

Legal in the same sense as contracts that gave: a $3.7 million severance check in 2000 to Thomas A. Corcoran, Mr. Hassey's predecessor, when things didn't work out; a $3.1 million severance check in 1997 to former executive William P. Rutledge, who had problems adjusting to Pittsburgh after moving here from Los Angeles after the company's merger with Teledyne; and $39.7 million in 2006 compensation to Mr. Hassey, Mr. Walton and three other executives.

"They're protected," says Mr. Miljus.

Some of their colleagues have become bitter and given up. Others are resigned.

"They say 'It's pure capitalism and that's the way it is,' " Mr. Shade says.

"I'm an optimist. ... I think we should pursue it as long as we're economically able to do it."

It's little solace that they are not alone, that all over the country retirees are struggling with the rules of a new game they are unfamiliar with.

Says Mr. Warne: "You could get thousands of these stories."