Tim Risinger, one of the 29 union members fired during the lockout, said, "This shows we were right. AK wanted to get rid of the union, and it failed."

Mike Ernsberger, coordinator of the union’s food bank, pointed to the donations that made possible the distribution of 700 tons of food to families of locked-out steelworkers in the course of the fight. Michele Laghetto, who chaired the meeting, introduced the several members of the organization Women of Steel from the town of Mansfield and throughout the region who had actively organized solidarity in their respective union locals and districts.

According to the Middletown Journal in Middletown, Ohio, site of company headquarters, the employer agreed to end the lockout when the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) officials informed the company that they had agreed to "certain items that were in dispute." Details of a new contract between the union and the company are still being negotiated.

No USWA member crossed the picket lines during the three-year lockout, and the plant has been run by scabs recruited by a union-busting company hired by AK Steel prior to the lockout. The replacement workers will be terminated as union members are called back and trained in what is now "a different plant," according to AK spokesman Alan McCoy, "one owned by a company with its own safety mindset and unique productivity and quality regimens."

Ray Delarwelle, one of the fired unionists, said, "I expect all of us terminated union members to eventually return to work. We have mixed feelings about the possible agreement. While on the one hand we can’t trust the company, on the other hand we’re definitely stronger going back together."  
 
 
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