WHEATLAND TUBE 100 layoffs to follow strike at company

Workers will get successive hourly raises.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
WHEATLAND, Pa. -- The strike at Wheatland Tube Co. is over, but not everyone will be going back to work.
A general slowdown in the pipe and tube industry will result in about 100 layoffs at the plant, said Bill Kerins, vice president of operations for the company.
Most workers will be called back over the next two or three weeks, but about 100 will be laid off for three to six months, Kerins said today.
"We'll do our best to get everyone back," he said, explaining that furloughed employees will be recalled if and when business picks up.
Kerins had warned striking workers two months ago that layoffs were likely because of a slow market.
The 470 members of Local 1660 of the United Steelworkers of America walked off their jobs April 28..
A key issue was the company's insistence that workers begin picking up a portion of their health-care insurance premiums.
In the end, however, they agreed to begin making a $50- per-month contribution to those premium costs, beginning in January 2004.
What happened
The union voted 261-150 Sunday to accept the terms of a tentative agreement worked out last week.
Workers began reporting for drug testing today as all workers will be required to undergo the test before returning to their jobs, said Mike Munger, union president.
Millwrights and electricians will start back Tuesday, and other department recalls will begin Wednesday, he said.
The company resumed limited production during the strike, utilizing foremen and other supervisors, and that production will continue until the steel workers are back in their jobs, Kerins said.
The new contract takes effect Wednesday, but Kerins said the company reinstated employee insurance coverage today so furloughed workers won't be without health insurance.
The pact is essentially the same as the one rejected by the union Sept. 14. The only difference is that the implementation of a 95-5 insurance coverage package, replacing the old 100 percent coverage plan, will be delayed until January 2005. The earlier proposal had the reduced-benefit plan going into effect in January 2004.
"I think people needed to go back to work," Munger said of the approval vote. "There are still some against it, but they realized there's nothing more there."
Other details
The contract wasn't all concessions.
Workers are getting hourly raises of 40 cents in the first year, 30 cents in the second and 50 cents in the third year of the three-year pact.
The 95-5 plan will have workers paying the first 5 percent of their health-care costs up to a maximum of $500 per year for individuals and $1,000 for families.
Copays on drug prescriptions will go up from $8 to $10, and doctor's office visits will rise from $10 to $15.
New employees will no longer be offered a traditional pension plan but a 401(k) savings plan, with the company matching 50 percent of an employee's savings up to the first 6 percent of that employee's wages. The company will also contribute to the plan the equivalent of 1.5 percent of an employee's wages after the first year.