AUSTINTOWN YSD pact includes raises for employees

THE VINDICATOR, YOUNGSTOWN
The Austintown company has 100 workers on layoff.
AUSTINTOWN -- YSD Industries has agreed to raises for its union employees despite struggling with a low number of orders.
The Austintown maker of railroad car parts and its union agreed to a three-year contract last week that provides yearly raises of 2.5 percent, 3 percent and 3 percent.
Jack Jones, director of human resources, said there were some minor changes in health-care benefits for workers, but he didn't want to elaborate.
The new contract with United Steelworkers of America Local 2310 began April 1 and replaces a previous contract that expired March 31.
Jones said the plant on Henricks Road has about 200 people working, with about 100 people laid off.
Downturn: The company hired about 100 people between April and December because business was growing, but the slow economy hit the industry in December, he said.
Some of the plants that make railroad cars shut down in December because of low orders and haven't reopened, he said.
YSD began laying off workers in December. Most of the workers who were laid off were newly hired employees.
In addition to the contract vote, eight office workers voted unanimously to decertify from the Steelworkers union. The draftsmen and clerical workers will not be represented by a union.
The company was founded as Youngstown Steel Door in 1924, and it employed about 2,000 people in the 1970s. William Mundinger, company president, led a group that bought the company from a Cleveland investment company in 1988 and changed the name to YSD.