BY TONY DUTROW
PITTSBURGH - Some 4,500 striking steelworkers are now
into their fifth month of a determined fight against the
ninth-largest integrated steel producer, Wheeling-
Pittsburgh Steel Corporation and its parent company, WHX
Corporation. They are demanding the company reinstate a
guaranteed pension plan equal to those currently in place
at all other unionized basic steel workplaces. Union
members were forced to accept a substandard pension plan in
the aftermath of Wheeling-Pitt's l985 bankruptcy and an 89-
day strike that followed.
Initial reports are coming in on the results of a nationwide bucket-collection effort at basic steel mills throughout the country. Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore, LTV mills in Chicago and Pittsburgh, USX mills in Pittsburgh and Birmingham, and the Great Lakes National Steel mill in Detroit, among many others had collections on February 13. Members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) organized that day to kick off the campaign in solidarity with strikers from eight mills in the region, located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
Eleven strikers from Local 1187 in Allenport, Pennsylvania, and Local 1223 from Yorkville, Pennsylvania, participated in the collection at the USX Clairton works. Another carload from the Yorkville local helped out at the LTV coke works collection in Pittsburgh.
Larry O'Meary, a rail transportation worker with 26 years in the mills, looked forward to the outpouring of solidarity from around the country. O'Meary was out on the picket gate at the 80-inch mill February 15 and was pulling weekend duty to give other strikers a break. "The company can continue to try to weaken us, through their media ads and other things, but we're solid. We'll remain here as long as it takes," he said.
O'Meary and other pickets at the gate were upbeat about the resignation of James Wareham, CEO of Wheeling- Pittsburgh Steel, and the point man for the company's campaign of pressure and intimidation through the media.
According to the February 12 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the corporation "replaced its chief executive and confirmed that Chairman Ron LaBow will meet union officers for the first time since the strike began." Negotiations broke off January 17 when Wheeling-Pitt steel officials once again refused to discuss a guaranteed pension. The negotiations were supervised by federal mediators.
Company officials' preparations to reopen the talks came on the heels of a management change at WHX, which named former WCI Steel Inc., executive John Scheessele to replace James Wareham, who resigned February 11 as WHX president and Wheeling-Pittsburgh chief executive, effective March l. Scheessele resigned as president of WCI during a strike by the USWA against that company in 1985.
Meanwhile, "the `frank and constructivé talks at the WHX's New York headquarters lasted about six hours and ended with both sides agreeing to meet again soon," reported the February 14 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
O'Meary's view of these developments were shared by the four other pickets, pointing to the virtual fortress strikers have built at this gate, well fortified with towering screens to keep the chilly wind from whipping through. "We're going to continue and stand here and picket - after all, we have nothing better to do," he said, smiling. "And nobody's hiring," he added as everyone laughed.
Tony Dutrow is a member of USWA Local 1557 at USX in Clairton, Pennsylvania.