WHEATLAND Tube plant workers strike

The company wants workers to contribute to their health-care premiums.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
WHEATLAND, Pa. -- Some 470 workers belonging to United Steelworkers of America Local 1660 went on strike when their contract expired at 12:01 a.m. today at the Wheatland Tube Co. plant.
Negotiations, which had been facilitated by federal mediator Patrick Mingarelli, had broken off Wednesday, and no new talks were scheduled, said Michael Munger, union local vice president.
"It's mostly benefits and a change in pensions," Munger said of concessions the company is seeking.
The plant, which manufactures pipe, is idle, and Bill Kerins, vice president of operations, said the company intends to keep it that way for the duration of the strike. The company plans to serve its customers through its Sawhill Tubular plant in Sharon, which does the same work and is represented by a different union local, and other plants, he said. The company also has plants in Warren, Ohio; Little Rock, Ark.; and Chicago, from which it will also serve its customers, he said. Those plants have different unions.
"They moved a lot of stuff up there," Munger said of the Sharon plant. "They moved pipe. They moved all the rolls from our roll shop" by truck to Sharon, Munger added.
Major sticking points
Major unresolved issues are health care and pensions. The company is asking the workers to begin contributing toward their health-care premiums as management and salaried employees have been doing since 1992, Kerins said. Those employees now pay 20 percent of their health-care premiums, he observed.
One stumbling block, Kerins said, is "the union being adamant that they will not pay $1 toward their health care at a time when we believe that it's time for them to step to the plate." The company's health-care costs have gone up more than 62 percent in the past four years, he added.
When talks broke off, the company was proposing phasing in the copayment for union workers at 10 percent, 15 percent and 20 percent annually over a three-year period, Kerins said.
Wants 401(k) plan
The company also seeks to substitute a 401(k) plan for the current pension plan for future employees, he said. The company would put 1 percent of the new employees' gross wages into the 401(k) plan, and provide a 50 percent match to employee 401(k) contributions, he said.
The company also proposes to eliminate retiree health benefits only for new union hires, as it did for management and salaried workers in 1994, Kerins said.
"We think it will help shore things up for the future and create more stability here and create employment growth," Kerins said of the concession proposal. "We've offered $1 over three years in wage increases," he added.
The company was founded in 1877. The last previous strike at this Wheatland plant, founded in 1930, was a two-week walkout in April 1991, Munger said.
The company and union gave different average annual wage figures for the strikers. Munger said it was about $43,000. Kerins said it was about $46,000.
Due to a slump in the market, the company is shutting down its cold draw division plant in Wheatland, where 115 USWA workers are employed, Kerins said. The company hopes to relocate those workers to other plants, he added.