BY TONY DUTROW
PITTSBURGH - "We proved that LaBow couldn't break us," said Ron Moran, a maintenance worker and member of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), in a phone interview from Mingo Junction, Ohio, where Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corp. has a mill. He was referring to the victory steelworkers there scored recently after a nearly eleven- month-long strike.

Ronald LaBow, chairman of WHX Corp., Wheeling-Pitt's parent company, has been the target of the anger of many of the 4,500 steelworkers who struck in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The settlement, in what the August 4 Wall Street Journal described as "the longest strike against a major steel company this century," was announced as 185,000 Teamsters hit the picket lines against UPS.

Moran said he voted against the contract, which was approved overwhelmingly by the union membership in a secret ballot August 12. But he added that workers did win some of their key demands, particularly forcing WHX to back off from dismantling an industry-standard guaranteed pension, which LaBow had vowed he would never accept. Moran said the pact that ended the strike fell short of what the company could have been forced to agree to.

"The bosses are very bitter about the strike," Moran stated, referring to the situation inside the mill after the walkout. "We're still struggling with them, and we're going to be struggling to be treated justly and with equality on the job." He continued, "If nothing else, we stood together for 10 months and showed the company we've followed our union and will continue to do so."

Other workers made similar comments on the importance of coming out of the battle with their union intact and a bit stronger.

Jerry Adams, who worked for 31 years at Wheeling Pitt's Beech Bottom, West Virginia, corrugating mill, said the high point of the strike for him was the chance to reach out to other unionists for solidarity. He traveled to Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York spreading the message of the strike and seeking support. "I feel so fortunate to have been able to be part of this," he said in an interview. "I think this outreach helped break LaBow." In addition to speaking tours in states further away, unionists from the area joined Wheeling-Pitt workers in leafleting working-class neighborhoods in towns in the region to get the facts out about their strike and expose the role of WHX stockholders in the attempt to defeat the union.

Adams said the mill where he works was originally slated to be shut down, along with production lines at the Martins Ferry, Ohio, galvanizing mill. The settlement includes a reversal of this decision and recall of nearly 200 workers.

The company gave in to the main union demand of a "defined-pension plan." This guarantees each retiree a monthly pension of at least $1,200, or $40 per year of service, for those at least 55 years of age who have worked for the company 30 years and more. This has been the standard for USWA members at other U.S. steelmakers.

Terms of settlement
The company had vowed to maintain a "defined- contribution" pension plan, which USWA members at Wheeling- Pittsburgh agreed to when the steelmaker argued it needed concessions to emerge from bankruptcy several years ago. The company plan placed a fixed amount of money into a retirement fund invested in the stock market, the value of which would rise and fall according to the gyrations of the market.

Company executives argued the union did not win much of a victory in the end. "We did some creative things to let them say they got a defined-benefit plan," Daniel Keaton, a Wheeling-Pitt vice president and member of the company negotiating team told the August 4 Wall Street Journal. "The union was intent on a defined benefit. We gave in to that, but the level of benefit is the same as if it were a defined contribution."

The contract is for five years on wage issues and eight years for the pension issues. It includes a wage increase of $1.50 an hour - phased in over five years - on top of the average pay of $14 an hour; a $2,000 signing bonus, plus a $200 weekly pay and full medical coverage for workers waiting to be recalled on the job; and $2 million to reimburse workers for out-of-pocket medical expenses they incurred during the strike. The full-coverage medical plan in place before the walkout is included in the new contract.

The agreement extends the pension plan for three years beyond the life of the contract. Concesssions include eliminating 850 jobs - nearly 19 percent of the workforce - through attrition and buyouts; and "workplace efficiencies," that is job combinations and other work rule changes that will toughen working conditions.

Reaction by big business
USWA president George Becker called the pact a "remarkable victory" for the union. But the company said it, too, was pleased. Keaton said Wheeling-Pitt will now be able to produce the same amount of steel with fewer workers. "At the end of the day we have lowered our costs measurably with this deal," Keaton stated.

According to the August 18 American Metals Market, a steel industry daily, WHX posted an operating loss of $101 million and a net loss of nearly $72 million for the first half of 1997, on a 64 percent decline in sales compared to the previous year.

"The settlement, while welcome by both parties, renews worries that all steel producers could suffer from lower prices as Wheeling-Pittsburgh reenters the market," said an article in the August 4 Wall Street Journal.

The walkout and the new contract did have an impact throughout the steel industry. Supplies of flat-rolled products, particularly coated and cold-rolled sheet steel, used by the auto and other industries, were tight during the strike causing higher prices that are now expected to drop. Wheeling-Pitt is one of the few Basic Steel companies with blast furnaces that can produce such products. Over the last decade, the number of blast furnaces in the United States has dropped from 197 to 43.

Today, Wheeling Pitt has two such furnaces, while industry giant USX has 12. During the restructuring of the industry, many Basic Steel mills that use pig iron ore have shut down. "Minimills," largely nonunion and running on recycled scrap metal, have proliferated. The minimills, however, are more and more dependent on Basic Steel for processed iron to mix with the increasingly scarce and impurity-tainted scrap, which is not suitable by itself for producing flat-rolled steel that meets the standards in auto and other basic manufacturing.

An editorial in the August 5 Pittsburgh Post Gazette, titled "Labor unrest; strikes may signal return of a more balanced playing field," expressed the uneasiness of many employers with the Wheeling-Pitt settlement. "The economy is booming, profits are sizzling and some workers have decided that they want to share in the good times," the editorial said. "Those at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. and at United Parcel Service are willing to strike for the privilege...

"Ron LaBow.. said he would never go back to that costlier (more secure) system. In the end, however, the defined-benefit plan was agreed to."

The Wall Street Journal said the settlement gave "Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. workers a key pension related-victory, and the company desired job cuts."

Solidarity is key in union victory
Solidarity from other unionists contributed to the USWA's success in weathering some of the main company attacks. During the first months of the walkout, solidarity rallies of 2,000-4,000 workers were held in the region. Hundreds of steelworkers from all eight struck mills protested at the company's headquarters in Pittsburgh last November. They denounced Wheeling-Pitt's decision to cut off supplemental payments to widows of retirees. These payments were restored as part of the settlement.

Women's committees were set up by the Steubenville and Yorkville, Ohio, union locals, led by mill workers who are women. These committees were instrumental in winning support for the strike among other workers and small businessmen in the area. Women strikers, for example, succeeded in getting hundreds of stores in the Ohio Valley to donate food to the embattled USWA members and display support for the walkout. The Yorkville women's committee organized regular collections at nearby factories. Steubenville streets were plastered with signs the women's committee there produced, urging motorists to honk in support and to wear blue ribbons in solidarity.

The AFL-CIO held a Wheeling-Pitt Solidarity Conference April 26 in downtown Pittsburgh. At that gathering, some 200 local union officials from the three-state region where the strike took place, pledged funds and organizing solidarity activities in their areas. AFL-CIO president John Sweeny chaired the conference and introduced a spirited delegation of Wheeling-Pitt strikers, who received a standing ovation.

Rank-and-file workers in the region and throughout the country took initiatives, sanctioned by their unions, to support the strike. Betsy Farley, a member of USWA Local 12014 in Birmingham, Alabama, works at the Sloss Industries Coke steel mill there. "At my last union meeting," Farley said in a recent interview, "the Wheeling-Pitt settlement was reported and discussed. Several of my coworkers told me they were proud to have helped the strikers win their demand for a defined pension plan. Workers at Sloss pitched in on a plant-gate collection for the strikers in March. This is our victory, too!"  
 
 
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