Duferco workers rally over contract

By Jeanne Starmack

Workers say a decent wage is important for their families and for the area.

FARRELL, Pa. — Hoping to nudge Duferco into negotiating a new contract faster, plant workers took to the street for a rally in front of the company.

A group of them stood with signs in hand Wednesday across the street from the plant entrance on Roemer Boulevard.

Trucks honked in support. They waved back.

It wasn’t a hostile move on the part of United Steelworkers Local No. 1016-03, said the union’s president, Dave McLaren, it was simply a solidarity rally to protest the negotiations McLaren characterized as “moving forward, but moving very slow.”

Talks have been going on for six months, he said, over a new contract in which the union hopes to negotiate a raise. He said he didn’t want to be specific on how much of a raise at this point. He said the union is also negotiating toward a fair contribution to health care. “The company wants us to chip in more.”

There are also unresolved contract language issues, he said.

Meanwhile, the plant’s approximately 400 hourly employees are working under the terms of their old contract, which expired April 3.

They’re making between $16 and $21 an hour depending on what job they do, McLaren said, and contributing about 15 percent toward health-care costs.

“Wages aren’t necessarily bad,” he said. “We’re behind bigger steel mills.”

The plant manufactures steel coils from slabs.

Ron Hunter Jr., who works in shipping and has been with Duferco for nine years, said that he believes hourly workers deserve a higher wage.

“They constantly tell us the hourly work force is the bedrock of the company,” he said. “I want them to step up to the plate.”

Hunter said that people in salaried positions within the company receive large bonuses.

“We get pizza,” he said. “That’s our bonus.”

For Robert Hendrickson of Sharon, an electrician who’s been with Duferco for three years, job security is a big issue.

“Put language in [the contract] so that if they sell [the plant], they’ll honor the union,” he said.

Judy Johnson of Sharon, who was at the rally with her daughter Kristen, 15, said a raise is important to her.

“We have loans taken out for colleges,” she said. “We need a decent wage. Raise us up a little bit.”

Johnson’s worked at the plant for 29 years while it was Sharon Steel, then Caparo Steel, and then Duferco in 1999. She’s now a coil box operator in the hot mill.

“I have a lot of faith in the company. They’ll come around. They just need some boostin’,” she said.

“We’ve got a fine mix of people and a good work force,” said McLaren, who’s a pipe fitter for the company and lives in Sharon.

“Attendance is over 99 percent every month. We want to work.”

A company spokesman said Duferco would not comment.

More talks are set for Friday, McLaren said.