Middletown plant still locked out

Other unions are beginning to get involved.
MIDDLETOWN (AP) -- There have never been so many well-manicured lawns in Middletown, some AK Steel pickets say, because the hourly production and maintenance workers have little else to do other than tend their yards as the lockout at the Middletown Works settles into its fifth month.
With some 2,300 workers idled -- and about 400 others newly retired -- there also are slimmer wallets all around.
The effects have hit small business owners such as Jim Cheesman, who put everything he had into The Anchor restaurant a year and a half ago.
"Nobody in this town has any money," said Cheesman, who has tried karaoke and other promotions to draw customers. "I've got too much money sunk in this place to let it sit here and die."
His business is down by more than half, he said, even though he is trying to help out locked-out workers by giving them a 20 percent discount on meals.
"Your whole life's changed by the lockout," said Jim Hurte, 51, an AK worker who's eligible to retire but would prefer to be back in the mill. "You don't go out to eat as much. You try to see your friends. But mostly you just sit around."
AK Steel locked out members of the Armco Employees Independent Federation when their contract expired at midnight Feb. 28. The company has continued to operate the mill with about 1,500 salaried employees and replacement workers.
The company has insisted it needs a "new-era" contract that gives it freedom to determine the size of the Middletown plant's work force and make it more flexible. The AEIF opposes those moves and company proposals to make employees pay part of their health insurance costs and convert to a 401(k)-style pension plan.
The company and the union have exchanged proposals in sporadic meetings, but there have been none of the traditional prolonged bargaining sessions.
Most sessions have been followed by accusations of footdragging from both sides. But an AEIF statement following last week's session was upbeat.
"Our meeting this past Wednesday was productive; we expect next Thursday's meeting will be productive as well," the executive committee said.
Other union involvement
Meanwhile, AEIF members are being courted by representatives of the United Steelworkers and the International Association of Machinists. The AEIF executive board has urged members to sign on with the Machinists because of their nearly $8 billion pension fund, but the Steelworkers -- who represent AK workers at Mansfield and at Ashland, Ky., are campaigning hard.
"We have a thousand members who work for AK [at Mansfield and Ashland] who have a real community interest in what happens with this company, with the pensions, with the cost of health care going forward," said Tom Conway, a Steelworkers' international vice president who was in Middletown on Friday.
"I think we have more of a stake in this than the Machinists or any other union does, so I don't at all feel uninvited and, in fact, I have a lot of AEIF members inviting me here."
It will be up to the National Labor Relations Board to set a date for a union election. That could be done this week, but balloting would not begin until at least late July.
AK Steel makes flat-rolled carbon steel and stainless and electrical steel used in cars and appliances. The company's biggest mill and headquarters are in Middletown, about 30 miles north of Cincinnati, with smaller plants in Zanesville, Mansfield and Coshocton; Ashland, Ky.; Rockport, Ind.; and Butler, Pa.
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