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Steelworkers approve contract
WARREN
Union employees at RG Steel’s mill here opposed a new four-year contract but were outvoted by hourly workers at other facilities owned by the steelmaker.
According to a statement from the United Steelworkers of America International office in Pittsburgh, in mail-in voting, 57 percent of hourly production, maintenance, office and clerical employees of the former Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel facilities in the Ohio Valley; the former WCI (Republic and LTV) Steel facility in Warren; the former Bethlehem Steel facility in Sparrows Point, Md.; Mountain State Carbon in Follansbee, W.Va., and Wheeling Corrugating in Wheeling, voted 2,062 to 1,528 in favor of the new contract.
Warren plant production and clerical employees voted a combined 296 for and 472 against the pact, and Steubenville facility hourly production and clerical workers voted a combined 362 for and 674 against the new contract.
Offsetting the area facilities’ strong “no” votes were the Sparrows Point facility hourly workers, who voted 1,062 for and 224 against the contract.
The new pact, which calls for work-rule changes, is retroactive to April 1 and expires Sept. 1, 2014. It covers about 6,000 union workers at the facilities. Contract negotiations began in mid-2008, and the former work agreement expired Nov. 1, 2008.
Under the new agreement, workers will receive a $1-per-hour pay increase immediately and then an additional 4 percent pay raise each of the next three years, union officials said.
Warren labor leaders, meeting Friday at USW headquarters in Pittsburgh, were unavailable to comment.
RG Steel purchased the USW-represented facilities in a stock transaction last month from Severstal North America.
USW International President Leo W. Gerard praised the members at RG Steel for enduring more than two years of uncertainty over ownership issues and the future of the plants.