At the local's union hall, negotiating committee member Mark Chicwak said the company is seeking to make workers pay up to $400 a year in medical deductibles and 20 percent of the medical bills. Under the expired contract workers paid only $10 for a doctor visit and $5 for a prescription. Additionally, the company is demanding that the workers for the first time pay a premium for their insurance.

As far as pensions are concerned, Chicwak explained that "when JP Industries bought the plant in 1987 they didn't take responsibility for the pension plan. So that means that no matter how long a person has been working here, their seniority for calculating their pension only begins in 1987." For example, of the 28 years Chicwak has been working at the plant, only 14 years are applied toward his pension. The company's demand is to freeze the level of the pension payments at $24 a month per year of employment. With an average age of 46, workers at the plant place a high priority on maintaining the pension plan.

"Once you give something up you never get it back," said union member Mark Graves. "It didn't take much time to decide what we were going to do with the contract once it got out on the floor," Graves continued. "So the company sent people out on the floor trying to sell the contract, saying we didn't understand it."

Striker Jerry Mosser added that a lot of workers "were furious about the contract. The company safety director wanted some of us to come to a meeting so he could 'explain' the contract to us. I told him, 'I don't appreciate you telling me I don't know how to read,' and that was the end of that."

To build solidarity for their strike, the local sent a team to talk to workers and pass out flyers at another Dana plant of about 300 workers in Bellefontaine, Ohio. "We got a very good response," said Chicwak, "no negative comments at all. This week we are going to a Dana plant in Lima, Ohio, which is one of four plants with contracts expiring on December 3."

Schafer added, "You could count the local businesses that haven't supported us on one hand." A big banner in the union hall lists the supporters of the fight by Local 4836.

A group of workers from Magnetic Specialty, Inc. (MSI), in nearby Marietta, Ohio, came here during the first week of the strike to express their support. Steelworkers at Dana supported a two-year fight by workers at MSI that ended in 1999.  
 
 
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