At a March 11 union meeting 79 percent of the 366 workers present voted to accept a new three-year contract. "Neither side got all that it wanted, but the new contract will be advantageous for those of our members who are close to retirement," union local president Denis Kavanagh told the paper This Week.

The pact contains concessions on the company's rights to contract out work and working hours. The bosses will eliminate about 100 jobs through attrition over the life of the contract. Workers gained improvements in the pension plan, and those who retire before August will receive a $30,000 incentive payment.

Three hundred workers will be recalled by April 1 and the rest by December 2. Acceptance of the contract was contingent on workers not called back to work now being eligible for federal employment insurance.

Several weeks ago Co-Steel Lasco, which transforms metal scrap from the auto industry into structural steel, began hiring 200 replacement workers. When the union declared its intention to prevent the replacement workers from crossing its picket lines, the bosses went to court to get an injunction limiting the number of pickets. The court hearing was adjourned until March 12 to see if negotiations between the union and company were possible, and the company committed itself not to try to bring replacement workers across the picket lines during that period

Local 6571's efforts to win solidarity from other workers bore fruit in the United States when members of USWA Local 2632 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, learned that Johnstown Corp. had received a major order to machine 67 blank rolls made by Hitachi of Japan from Co-Steel Lasco. The unionists decided to refuse the work. The company tried to pressure the local to accept the job because 150 members are on layoff and others are working reduced hours.

The Post Gazette reported that the local's president, Curtis Corle, said, "There comes a time in a man's life when you have to say 'no' and mean it. When it comes to a company trying to make a scab out of me, doing fellow steelworkers' work, that's a sacred cow. I'll always say 'no.'"

The solidarity of Local 2632 members "may just have been the reason" the talks resumed, said Ontario USWA subdistrict director Jim Stewart. "It was nothing short of heroic," said Denis Kavanagh. Both comments appeared in the Post-Gazette.

Co-Steel Lasco bosses also felt the pressure from auto workers at the nearby General Motors assembly plant. Three days before the contract vote, Canadian Auto Workers Local 222 raised $15,000 at a plant gate collection for the USWA Local 6571 membership. The day before the vote a large contingent of Co-Steel Lasco workers and their families marched in the International Women's Day parade in Toronto. They carried signs declaring: "No scabs," "I am a victim of Co-Steel injustice," and "Injustice to one is injustice to all."

John Steele is a meat packer and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.  
 
 
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