THOUSANDS of members of the United Steelworkers (USW) union from across the United States voted overwhelmingly last week to authorise their bargaining committee to initiate a strike at US Steel facilities. The committee could now call a strike if the company continues to demand deep concessions from its hourly work force.
The union’s collective bargaining agreements with US Steel expired on Sept. 1st, but union members have continued to work under the terms of an agreed-to extension.
That agreement remains in effect with 48 hours’ notice required for termination. The two sides have been negotiating since July.
USW International President Leo W. Gerard said: ‘These workers have made a number of sacrifices over the past several years – including three years with a wage freeze – to put this company back on track.
‘Now that US Steel is expecting to make a profit of nearly $2 billion this year, it is time for the workers to share in the success US Steel is seeing now.’ Top company officials have given themselves more than $50 million in pay and bonuses since 2015 while the hourly work force has not received a wage increase over the same period.
‘The USW did not come to the bargaining table looking for a fight,’ said USW International Vice President Tom Conway, who leads the union’s bargaining committee.
He added: ‘We came ready to work out an honest and fair agreement, but that is a far cry from what the company is demanding.
‘We remain prepared to work in good faith. We expect US Steel to come to its senses and return to the bargaining table with workable proposals.’ The company has proposed major increases in benefit costs for the work force, as well as other significant concessions that would reduce workers’ overall take-home pay and eliminate a number of on-the-job protections. The two sides are scheduled to resume negotiations next week.
USW District 7 Director Mike Millsap said: ‘With the company hugely profitable and industry conditions the best they have been in years, this is no time for US Steel to pick a fight with workers who have been there to help them during the toughest times.
‘It’s time to come together and do what’s right for these workers, their families and their communities.’
The USW’s master agreement with US Steel covers a total of more than 16,000 workers at the following locations: Clairton Works (Pennsylvania), East Chicago Tin (Indiana), Fairfield (Alabama), Fairfield Southern (Alabama), Fairless Hills (Pennsylvania), Gary Works (Indiana), Granite City Works (Illinois), Great Lakes Works (Michigan), Keetac (Minnesota), Lone Star Tubular (Texas), Lorain Tubular (Ohio), Midwest Plant (Indiana), Minntac (Minnesota) and Mon Valley Works (Pennsylvania).
The union’s negotiations with ArcelorMittal and US Steel cover a total of 31,000 active workers and also set health care and retirement benefits for thousands more retired workers. The companies’ most recent proposals have sought to impose higher health care costs on both active and retired employees.
‘These workers and their families have made significant sacrifices over the years to put these two companies in a position to be successful,’ Gerard said. ‘They deserve to share in that success.’ Thousands of members of the United Steelworkers (USW) union from across the United States, along with labour, political, religious and community allies, held a series of rallies and marches on Thursday August 30 to call for fair contracts with steelmakers ArcelorMittal and US Steel.
‘Today, we saw hard-working people standing up with one voice demanding fair treatment for themselves and their families,’ said USW International President Leo W. Gerard. ‘These workers have gone three years without a wage increase,’ he said.
‘In that time, they’ve seen the cost of everything go up; they’ve seen their employers report millions of dollars in profits; they’ve seen management pay themselves millions of dollars in bonuses.‘And today, they stood up and said they’d seen enough.’
The union’s negotiations with ArcelorMittal cover about 15,000 members of 13 local unions while the USW’s master agreement with US Steel covers more than 16,000 workers at 24 local unions.
• Locked-out gas workers who have been battling with National Grid for months, claiming public safety may be at risk, last Wednesday, 12 September, rallied in Boston to bring attention to their cause. Their battle with National Grid started back in June when their contract expired.
The unions say they were prepared to keep working as negotiations went on, but National Grid locked them out the day after the contract was up. Now, those union members say they’ve been left without benefits like health insurance and untrained personnel are doing the potentially dangerous work that they used to do.
At the rally former union official, now a radio and TV personality, Jim Braude, was joined by John Buonopane, president of United Steel Workers Local 12012, and David Monahan, a union service tech out of Lowell. National Grid claimed in a statement that it had ‘successfully completed more than 1,800 jobs over the past 12 weeks without incident.’
The company says it was a difficult decision to lock out the union workers, but claims they must ‘balance the needs of (their) employees with the interests of (their) customers’ and that no progress had been made in past negotiations stretching back to 2016.
• About a dozen people hit the streets in downtown North Bay on Saturday to help garner support for the Fight for $15 and Fairness. The volunteers with the province-wide campaign were busy collecting signatures for a petition calling on Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government to proceed with a planned minimum wage increase promised by the previous Liberal regime.
‘Today is a big day. It marks the start of a 15-week countdown until January, when the minimum wage bumps up to $15,’ said organiser Jared Hunt. He said Premier Doug Ford has signalled that he is not supportive of the wage hike for low-income earners and that the campaign is concerned the increase may be nixed.
‘Because we’re worried about it, we’re talking with people about their rights,’ said Hunt, noting the volunteers are not only speaking to people on the streets about the minimum wage increase, but other workplace changes that came under Bill 148 – the Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act – which was passed last year.
He said that includes fair scheduling, equal pay and paid vacations.
Hunt said the campaign believes that there’s a lot of support in Ontario for the increase in minimum wage and other workplace enhancements. And he said the campaign aims to demonstrate that to the new government.
‘We think that two thirds of Ontario actually want the increase,’ said Hunt, noting Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli, Ontario’s finance minister, will be asked to present the petition at Queen’s Park at the end of the month. ‘If Fedeli refuses, he said another provincial member of Parliament from another party will be asked.’
Fedeli, in an interview last month, didn’t say what direction the province will be taking when it comes to the planned minimum wage hike. But his comments were not supportive of the move. ‘We heard loudly and clearly from businesses how many jobs would be lost in Ontario,’ said Fedeli, referring to province-wide consultations last year on Bill 148. ‘And, we saw immediately – just as the Financial Accountability Office had predicted – we lost 50,000 jobs in January.’
Fedeli noted how the premier has said Ontario is open for business again. And he said that means ‘lower taxes, lower hydro rates and less red tape.’ ‘A big part will be how we handle the fallout of Bill 148 and the amount of companies that have left Ontario and the amount of companies that have not hired,’ he said.
The minimum wage rose last year to $14, from $11.60 an hour. And many businesses have said another increase in January is too much too fast. But Hunt said the campaign believes that’s a position propped up by large corporations that have long been ‘building wealth on the backs of workers earning low wages. ‘For decades, people in Ontario have been living in a low-wage economy,’ he said, stressing that the planned wage hike in January must proceed. ‘When we help the lowest earners we help everybody.’