Vol. 80/No. 1      January 4, 2016

 
(front page)

Steelworkers locked out in fight over two-tier wages

Boss: ‘Once-in-a-generation’ chance to cut pay

 
 
Since Allegheny Technologies Inc. locked out 2,200 Steelworkers at 12 plants in six states Aug. 15, the company has not budged from its concession contract proposals. The company says it sees a unique opportunity to cut wages — and boost profits.

ATI, a specialty metals manufacturer, has brought in vanloads of replacement workers. On Nov. 30, the company terminated health coverage of locked-out workers.

At the heart of ATI’s demands is a two-tier wage structure that would pit workers against each other. Bosses also want to slash health care, institute 12-hour shifts, cut pensions, reduce wages and overtime pay, and contract out more work. Some 30,000 members of the Steelworkers union at ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel, whose contracts expired Sept. 1, face similar concession demands.

“We are faced with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to bend the cost curve on a major part of our costs,” Robert Wetherbee, president of ATI’s Flat-Rolled Products, told New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse in a Dec. 3 interview. He said up to a third of the workforce could retire in four years and ATI wants to be able to pay new hires significantly less.

“If we’re going to be competitive, we have to be in a position where we have a different benefit structure for the next generation we hire,” he said. “We decided we couldn’t kick the can down the road any further.”

Steelworkers have maintained 24-hour picketing, organized expanded solidarity picket lines and rallies and won support from other union and nonunion workers in communities near the mills. Through social events, from spaghetti dinners to dart tournaments, locked-out workers, their families and supporters have gotten to know each other. Not one union member has crossed the line.

Dan Greenfield, vice president for investor relations, would not answer questions from the Militant, referring this reporter to the company website.

“Once you read it over, you’ll see why we are so up in arms,” said Terry Stinson, a picket captain at the Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, mill and member of Steelworkers Local 1138. “The company claims our average annual earnings are $94,000. I’m average, and if I made $94,000 last year, the company owes me about $35,000!”

Building a new rolling mill in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania, “we invested close to $400,000 per job in the Allegheny Valley,” Wetherbee told the Times. “Now we have an obligation to keep the business competitive.”

“But what is the price tag on my 28 years working at the mill?” asked Beth Cribbs, a member of Local 1196. “Co-workers practically lived out there, working mandatory doubles, building their new state-of-the-art facility.”

Wetherbee refers to the wages of steelworkers as simply “a major part of our costs.” In fact, workers’ labor power is the source of bosses’ profits. Steel capitalists confronting a worldwide contraction of capitalist production and trade and increased competition from rivals have no solution other than intensifying their attacks on wages, working conditions and safety.

“Along with many autoworkers, we are against two-tier contracts, which introduce tension on the job,” Vonie Long, president of USW Local 1165 at the ArcelorMittal mill in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, told the Militant. “Only because of a start date, two workers in the same job classification make a different hourly rate. ATI, ArcelorMittal and U.S. Steel are trying to roll back 70 years of union struggles.” Long has joined picket lines at the ATI plant in Latrobe in the western part of the state in solidarity.

“ATI is not hiding their aims, which are addressed not just to us, but to working-class America,” said Lou Chillinsky, president of Local 1138-6 in Latrobe.

Locked-out Steelworkers in Brackenridge picketed in front of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 9 headquarters to appeal for solidarity from bricklayers, some of whom have crossed the picket line to replace heat-resistant furnace bricks at the ATI mill there.

Nearly 100 workers from several ATI plants rallied at the Bagdad, Pennsylvania, mill Dec. 18 in response to ATI’s announcement it would idle that mill and one in Midland in 2016, eliminating 600 jobs. “This is a scare tactic against the union,” Stinson said.

“During the Bagdad rally we got the news that the National Labor Relations Board will issue a complaint that the lockout is illegal,” said Alan Braden, Local 1138 safety coordinator. “What we have done has won a lot of support. At a local grocery store later that night some supporters broke into cheers as some USW members were shopping.”

To send solidarity messages or contributions, go to http://www.usw.org/act/campaigns/ati-bargaining.

Alan Braden, a member of USW Local 1138 in Bagdad, Pennsylvania, contributed to this article.
 
 
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