WEST VIRGINIA Wheeling-Pitt, USWA reach a tentative pact

The labor deal is expected to be similar to an International Steel Group pact.
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) -- Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel and the United Steelworkers said Thursday they have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract that is crucial to the company's emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Details of the agreement will not be released until union members have been informed and have had an opportunity to discuss the deal, union officials in Pittsburgh said.
The union had been negotiating with Wheeling-Pitt since May on the new contract. It now goes to the rank-and-file Steelworkers for a ratification vote that will be conducted over the next several weeks through mail-in balloting.
John Anton, steel analyst at Global Insight in Washington, said the agreement likely resembles one with International Steel Group that was ratified last week by thousands of workers at six former Bethlehem Steel sites.
About that deal
That contract called for hourly wages ranging between $15 and $20.50 per hour, a new training program, quarterly profit-sharing payments based on earnings per ton and expanded health and safety rules.
"The International Steel contract has swept the industry," Anton said. "There are few integrated mills that haven't accepted that contract or something like it."
Wheeling-Pitt employs about 3,800 people at plants in Follansbee and Beech Bottom in West Virginia; Steubenville, Mingo Junction, Yorkville and Martins Ferry in Ohio and Allenport, Pa.
The company filed for bankruptcy in November 2000.
Last week, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge William T. Bodoh approved Wheeling-Pitt's reorganization plan, positioning the steelmaker to claim a $250 million federally guaranteed loan from the Royal Bank of Canada. However, the company must settle its labor and pension issues by Monday to receive the financing.
"Our agreement is consistent with the template that has been established in the industry and will provide Wheeling-Pittsburgh with the flexibility and cost savings associated with other recently negotiated labor agreements," said James G. Bradley, Wheeling-Pitt president and CEO.
Reaction to contract
USWA International President Leo W. Gerard called the tentative contract "a milestone in the reorganization of the American steel industry."
"If the new agreement is ratified, Wheeling-Pittsburgh will become the first major integrated steelmaker to successfully reorganize and emerge from bankruptcy since the current steel crisis began in 1998," Gerard said.
But the reorganization plan also hinges on an agreement with the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which moved in March to seize the pensions of Wheeling-Pitt and another WHX Corp. subsidiary, Handy & amp; Harman of Rye, N.Y.