Life on the line for workers
They're not on strike; they're locked out. RMI workers tell how they cope.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
WEATHERSFIELD -- Don Dean applied for work at a Pennsylvania steel mill this week, but he doubts he'll get the job.
A millwright with decades of experience, Dean feels his age is a liability in the job market. He's 55.
Besides, the Boardman man already has a job, he says, and it's a good one. Prospective employers know he'll go back if he can.
And that's the rub. Dean, a 22-year veteran of RMI Titanium, is one of about 370 workers who have been locked out of their jobs at the Weathersfield Township metal mill since Oct. 26.
They wonder when, or if, they'll ever go back to work at RMI, he said, but they want to.
Talks have continued sporadically between RMI officials and United Steelworkers of America locals 2155 and 2155-7, which represents the locked-out workers. Union leaders have reported little progress in the talks, even after six months.
Money concerns
Taking his turn on informational picket lines at the plant every four days, Dean hears workers worry aloud about the uncertain future of the plant and the money problems they're facing without a paycheck.
The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services approved unemployment compensation for the workers in November when the situation was ruled a lockout, not a strike. Most of those benefits ran out this month, however, and that's what prompted Dean to start looking for work.
He started his career as a apprentice millwright at the former U.S. Steel Corp. McDonald Works and later worked at a U.S. Steel facility in Pennsylvania.
"I was hoping I'd never have to go back to those dirty old steel mills," he said, "but you do what you have to do."
Dean's wife, Anna Jean, said the couple has always saved and lived frugally, so they've managed to pay their bills so far. She works part time cleaning houses.
Health insurance has been a problem -- the company eliminated benefits a month after the workers' contract expired. The Deans found a family policy that covers them and their younger son, a college student, but it costs almost $400 a month.
"We're getting by, living one day at a time. I can always scrub a few more floors," Anna Jean Dean said with a grin. "I just feel sorry for the younger people, the ones with the small kids and the big house payments."
Supporting young kids
Shari Kellar, 40, is one of those workers trying to keep a young family fed without an RMI paycheck. A Girard resident with a daughter, 9, and a son, 12, she worked in the machine shop at RMI and had 15 years' seniority before the lockout.
Kellar's husband has a full-time job and family health coverage, and she collected state jobless benefits until they ran out in March.
"It's still tough, when you're used to living on two incomes," she said. "Our kids don't understand money problems, and they shouldn't have to."
She's found a part-time job working as an assistant to a professional photographer, but she hopes to go back to RMI.
"I wonder, everybody wonders, if our jobs could be gone. It's there in the back of your mind that they could do that to us," she said, "but you try not to worry."
Members of locals 2155 and 2155-7 have been on the picket line before, and Kellar remembers. The union's previous contract was settled in 1999 after a seven-month strike, and the contract before that, in 1995, was resolved after a one-week strike.
"One big difference this time is that the community is supporting us," she said. "It's not as bad as the last time."
Standing in
Anna Kennedy, 38, has been taking her husband Jim's place on the picket line since early February when he left for Delaware to begin training for duty with the Air Force Reserves.
The 12-year RMI employee expects to leave for Kuwait in June, where he'll be serving for three to six months.
Anna Kennedy said she works full time, but the budget was tight before her husband was deployed. Now he's getting an Air Force paycheck, and the family is covered under the military's health-insurance plan.
Her greatest hope, as she stays home in Niles with the couple's two teenage children, is that her husband will have a job to come back to when he returns.
In the meantime, she's doing what she can to support her husband's co-workers.
"I took over the picketing because I want to stay active with the union," she said. "His grandmother worked at RMI; his mom worked there; he works there. I think the union needs to stick together."
vinarsky@vindy.com