WHEATLAND TUBE Committee urges members to ratify company's proposal

The company is billing the package as a tentative agreement.
THE VINDICATOR, YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO
WHEATLAND, Pa. -- The negotiating committee for Local 1660 of the United Steelworkers of America will take another contract package back to its membership for a ratification vote, but there's one big difference this time:
The committee is recommending that the proposal from Wheatland Tube Co. be accepted.
Dom Vadala, chief negotiator for the 470-member union, said the committee hopes to have a membership meeting at 8 a.m. Sunday. A location hasn't been determined yet, he said after a bargaining session Wednesday.
The union, on strike since its old contract expired April 28, turned down what was supposed to be the company's final offer Sept. 14 by a vote of 230-184, directing its negotiating committee to go back to the bargaining table.
Tentative agreement
The company and union went back to the bargaining table Tuesday and Wednesday, coming up with what Bill Kerins, vice president of company operations and its chief negotiator, called "a tentative agreement."
Details haven't been revealed by either side because the union membership hasn't seen it yet, but Vadala said it offers "a little bit of improvement" over the package rejected Sept. 14.
At the time of the rejection of the previous offer, Vadala said the company's insistence that production workers begin picking up a share of their health care insurance premiums and a plan to provide lesser benefits for new employees remained key stumbling blocks to a settlement.
The negotiating committee had presented that package to the membership without any recommendation, and it came up for a vote only because some members wanted to vote on it, he said.