Labor agreement plan eyed for July

BY ANDREA HOLECEK
holecek@nwitimes.com
219.933.3316 | Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The USW bargaining committee's goal is to present its U.S. Steel Corp. workers with a tentative labor agreement by mid July, Jim Robinson, USW District 7 director, said.

The United Steelworkers union is scheduled to meet separately this week with U.S. Steel Corp. and ArcelorMittal USA to discuss issues, ideas and goals concerning their new agreements, he said. The current pacts expire at the end of August.

Besides the master agreement, there are local contracts to be reached for each of the companies' facilities, Robinson said, adding local bargaining committees are involved in the process. Plus, there are subcommittees on various noneconomic issues.

"Typically, economic issues aren't done until local and noneconomic contractual issues are mostly agreed on," Robinson said. "But, you have to realize that in negotiations, nothing's settled until everything in the final package is settled ... Circumstances can change."

Although the first quarter appears to be profitable for the two steel companies, Robinson said the long-term health of the industry is what the union is concerned about in its bargaining philosophy.

The steelworkers obviously prefer to deal with companies making money, but the Pittsburgh-based union now is looking at a steel industry in the longer term.

"We (USW) drove the strategy to drive industry consolidation and it's worked," Robinson said. "We led the fight and we've succeeded, and the negotiations are about what we're going to get for our investment: the effort and leadership we put into the fight to get the industry where we are.

"The fight to save the industry was led by the union and its members so that the companies could operate and make money."