AK Steel workers reject ‘final offer’

Since March 1, some 2,100 members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local 1943 have been locked out at AK Steel in Middletown, Ohio. Last July, AK CEO James Wainscott said he would keep the workers out “for as short or as long as it takes.” Steel industry analyst David McGregor praised him. “It’s nice to see you’re still in fighting form,” he told Wainscott.

McGregor’s words could be applied to the locked-out steelworkers. After walking the picket lines for nearly seven months, on Sept. 25 they were asked to vote on the company’s “final offer.” Many were losing homes and cars and some were going through divorces. Yet a majority voted to stay out.

For almost 60 years the workers at AK steel, formerly Armco, were represented by the Armco Employees Independent Federation (AEIF). In July a majority voted to merge with the IAM. A sizable minority voiced a preference for the United Steelworkers (USWA), but only 10 voted to remain independent.

There was almost unanimous feeling that the workers needed the backing of an AFL-CIO union to win a decent contract. The AEIF leadership backed the IAM, hoping that access to the IAM pension fund would ease negotiations around the critical issue of retaining defined-benefit pensions.

When Wainscott took over AK from Richard Wardrop, he was portrayed as more conciliatory to the workers. It was Wardrop who had locked out USWA members for over three years at the Mansfield, Ohio, plant. Wardrop’s intransigence toward the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Middletown-area residents over the spewing of soot and metallic flakes netted AK a $1.7 million fine. A lawsuit by the U.S. EPA over illegal water pollution and waste dumping, launched when Wardrop was at the helm, is still unresolved.

Soon, however, Wainscott proved to be no less anti-union. The company presented the union with a 2-inch-thick “final offer,” giving the union only three days to review it. While it allowed for participation in the IAM pension fund, it gave AK the right to terminate that plan in five years and replace it with a 401(k). It reduced the number of job classifications and had questionable language that could allow outsourcing of jobs. It had a six-month phased return to work for the union members, forcing them to work alongside scabs during that period.

The IAM leaders, including former AEIF President Brian Daley, recommended the company’s offer be rejected. “It’s a matter of members weighing their personal financial condition or taking the risk of a proposal fraught with uncertainty,” stated Daley after the rejection vote.

The bosses immediately retaliated, getting a judge to slap on an injunction limiting the number of pickets and their proximity to the plant. But after seven months, the bosses are not the only ones “in fighting form.”