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Vol. 79/No. 39 November 2, 2015
Steelworkers press fight against
concessions, lockout
BY MITCHEL ROSENBERG
PHILADELPHIA — “U.S. Steel is trying to take everything from us,” Bill
Coe, president of United Steelworkers Local 4889 at U.S. Steel in
Fairless Hills said in a phone interview Oct. 11. Coe had just returned
from negotiations in Pittsburgh.
Some 17,000 workers at U.S. Steel and 13,000 at ArcelorMittal mills have
been working without a contract since Sept. 1, facing steep concession
demands from the bosses.
“Capitalists are the problem,” Luke Glantz, a safety representative for
Steelworkers Local 9462 at ArcelorMittal in Conshohocken told the
Militant. “They come up with more creative ways to maximize profits. The
only thing we have to fight back with is solidarity.”
At the same time, 2,200 Steelworkers locked out Aug. 15 by Allegheny
Technologies Inc. have been picketing at 12 plants in six states.
In Brackenridge, locked-out crane operator Mickey Karns said he was
inspired by members of the United Auto Workers at Fiat Chrysler, who
voted down a contract that maintained the hated two-tier wage structure,
forcing the company to back off from some concession demands.
Pickets have seen four or five ambulances driving out of the plant with
injured strikebreakers, Karns said. “ATI doesn’t care about anybody.”
Mitchel Rosenberg is a member of USW Local 10-1 at the Philadelphia
Energy Solutions refinery.
❖
BY VONIE LONG
LATROBE, Pa. — I visited the picket line of Steelworkers Local 1138-6 at
the ATI plant here Oct. 10.
The community is supportive. While I was there a woman dropped off a
pickup bed of firewood. Then a Latrobe High School band member and her
father dropped off four hoagie sandwiches to those on the picket line.
Picket captain Mitch Skwara said production is down considerably. “ATI
is only producing one or two heats per week with the scabs, where they
normally produce about 20,” he said.
Vonie Long is president of USW Local 1165 in Coatesville, Pennsylvania,
and works at the ArcelorMittal plant there.
Related articles:
On the Picket Line
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