gram that benefits the employees behind Cutco`s

INSIDEUSW@WORK
“
Workers know when something is dangerous. We need
to make sure workers have the power they need to stop
dangerous work, not just refuse it, stop it.
Linda Rae Murray,
”
president, American Public Health Association
USW Health Safety and Environment Conference, 2010
I N T E R N AT I O N A L E X E C U T I V E B O A R D
Leo W. Gerard
International President
04
Stan Johnson
Int’l. Secretary-Treasurer
Thomas M. Conway
Int’l. Vice President
(Administration)
Fred Redmond
Int’l. Vice President
(Human Affairs)
Made in America
Cutco is committed to manufacturing in the United
States with a USW-represented work force and
USW-made steel while other large cutlery makers
have moved production off shore.
08
Health, Safety Environment
An overflow delegation of 1,300 participates
in the 2010 Health Safety and Environment
Conference, known for its practical workshops
and national speakers.
Ken Neumann
Nat’l. Dir. for Canada
Carol Landry
Vice President at Large
12
Taking a Stand
The Obama administration is investigating our
claims that China is stealing green manufacturing jobs from American workers through a
broad array of trade policies and practices.
18
Paper Sector
Delegates to the 2010 paper sector conference
choose strengthening health and safety language
in their contracts as the number one goal for
ongoing industry bargaining.
DIRECTORS
David R. McCall, District 1
Michael Bolton, District 2
Stephen Hunt, District 3
F E AT U R E S
Speaking Out
CAPITOL LETTERS
News Bytes
03
30
33
O N T H E C O V E R : USW member Brad Reynolds grinds a knife edge at the Cutco cutlery
factory. Photo by Darrell Gronemeier.
BACK COVER: Leeann Anderson, assistant to the International President, leads the chant “Fired
Up; Ready to Go” at the 2010 USW International Women’s Conference. Photo by Steve Dietz.
William J. Pienta, District 4
Daniel Roy, District 5
Wayne Fraser, District 6
Jim Robinson, District 7
Volume 05/No.4
Ernest R. “Billy” Thompson, District 8
Daniel Flippo, District 9
John DeFazio, District 10
Robert Bratulich, District 11
Robert LaVenture, District 12
J.M. “Mickey” Breaux, District 13
C ommunications S taff :
Jim McKay, Editor
Wayne Ranick, Director of Communications
Gary Hubbard, Director of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.
Aaron Hudson and Kenny Carlisle, Designers
Lynne Baker, Jim Coleman, Deb Davidek,
Gerald Dickey, Connie Mabin, Tony Montana,
Scott Weaver, Barbara White Stack
Fall 2010
Official publication of the United Steelworkers
Direct inquiries and articles for USW@Work to:
United Steelworkers Communications Department
Five Gateway Center
Pittsburgh, PA 15222
phone 412-562-2400
fax 412-562-2445
online: www.usw.org
Contributors: Denise Edwards, Sean Hayden
USW@Work (ISSN 1931-6658) is published four times a year by the United Steelworkers AFL-CIO•CLC Five Gateway Center, Pittsburgh,
PA 15222. Subscriptions to non-members: $12 for one year; $20 for two years. Periodicals postage paid at Pittsburgh, PA and additional
mailing offices.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: USW@Work, USW Membership Department, 3340 Perimeter Hill Drive, Nashville, TN 37211
Copyright 2010 by United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO•CLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the
written consent of the United Steelworkers.
2
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
The U.S. International Trade Commission recently determined that coated paper imports from
China and Indonesia have adversely impacted the
U.S. paper sector and taken our jobs.
This was a great win that will protect American
jobs. But we must be careful that other domestic
markets like tissue, towel, board and uncoated
papers do not become new targets of unscrupulous
importers.
Consider this: No matter how advanced our
technology or how productive our workers, Americans can’t compete with imports sold below the
cost of production.
Companies and workers alike are hurt by illegal trading practices. Families, friends and communities suffer when jobs are lost.
We simply want fair competition. And we need
to do all we can – right now – to protect American businesses and workers from further trading
abuses.
James E. Sanderson, Jr.
USW Local 7898 president
Georgetown, S.C.
Morry, Morry
Jon Geenen
Int’l. Vice President
Gary Beevers
Int’l. Vice President
Protect American Paper Jobs
I take exception to (Titan International Inc.
Chairman and CEO) Morry Taylor wasting money
on newspaper advertisements and implying that I
should move to China if I don’t like God or guns.
Taylor should consider moving to China if he
desires a union-free country. He would have the
opportunity to work unlimited hours and receive a
“fair” day’s pay of $5 or less.
Taylor might consider me a lazy government
slacker for only flying 31 combat missions over
North Vietnam during August 1966. I could be
chastised for not working hard enough to have
earned the extra $2.10 combat pay for each mission.
I thanked God many times for helping me survive 100 missions over North Vietnam, but I hate
guns! I hated the thousands of deadly large guns
fired at me during night missions north of Hanoi.
Yes, Morry, I hate guns but I am not moving to
China.
Val Johnson
Anacortes, Wash.
What’s next?
They don’t make glass in Toledo, Ohio anymore or RCA televisions in Camden, N.J. A couple
of years ago, the iconic Radio Flyer little red
wagon closed up shop in Chicago and moved to
China.
What iconic American-made product will disappear next? It might be paper.
In 2009, China displaced the United States as
the world’s number one paper producer. Nearly 20
percent of the world’s paper is produced in China
now. The Chinese government gave its paper industry over $30 billion dollars in illegal subsidies,
giveaways that break all the rules of free trade.
Our union and three paper companies just won
an unfair trade practices case against China and
Indonesia for their abuses. Last year, we won cases
against China on steel and tire dumping.
Magazine and book paper, or coated free sheet
as it is known, is currently in China’s sights, not
the food-grade paper we produce in Canton and
Waynesville, N.C. However, we could be next.
We are not asking for special treatment – just
a level playing field. Our workers can match any
workers in the world in a fair fight. Help save
American jobs. Keep it made in the USA!
Jeff Israel
Local 507 Canton, N.C.
Safety Enforcement Turnaround
After reading the article about the USW’s
emergency oil meeting in USW@Work, all I could
say was, “It’s about time!”
I never forgot my first trip to a USW safety
forum. Being new to the group, I was very eager
to learn and ready to lay it on the line for my union
brothers and sisters at my home plant. When I
returned, I ran into a brick wall.
I found out that OSHA has a lot of rules, but
none of them seemed to favor workers. I learned
that the industry had figured out how to subvert the
system – by putting on a good show for inspectors.
We would often find ourselves falling victim
to the company’s semantic arguments about what
exactly constitutes “good faith” or “compliance.”
Employers used this technique to avoid scrutiny
and hefty fines.
It is still very frustrating sometimes. Yet I’m
glad to see that OSHA seems to have caught on
that they were being hoodwinked by the industry.
Finally, let’s remember our fallen brothers and
sisters with a few moments of silence. They are
gone but certainly will not be forgotten.
Brandon Scott
Local 13-447 Westago, La.
Health, Safety and Environment Conference
I was at the Health, Safety and Environment
conference in Pittsburgh in October. I was very
inspired by the workshops but even more so by
President Gerard.
I have no doubt about how strong his feelings
are for the members of the USW and the men,
women and children of the world. His backing and
the union’s strength makes my job and others at
our workplace easier.
Repeating famous words from Winston
Churchill, I ask that we “NEVER GIVE UP!”
Charles M. Fannin, Jr.
Local 1-689 West Union, Ohio
USW active and retired
members and their
families are invited to
“speak out” on these
pages. Letters should be
short and to the point.
We reserve the right to
edit for length.
Mail to:
USW@Work
Five Gateway Center,
Pittsburgh PA 15222
or e-mail:
[email protected]
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
3
E
very box shipped from the Cutco Cutlery
factory in the small town of Olean, N.Y., is
stamped Made in America by members of
the United Steelworkers.
Hundreds of thousands of boxes go out Cutco’s
doors. Last year, Cutco and its 450-member USWrepresented work force produced nearly 7 million
knives and other cutlery pieces that were shipped
directly to 850,000 customers.
The company thrives making knives it calls the
best in the world. It is committed to manufacturing
in the United States with a union work force while
other large cutlery makers have moved production
off shore to low-wage countries.
“I’m proud to work here,’’ said Robin DeStevens, a factory worker and Women of Steel coordinator for Local 5429 at the plant. “I’m proud to
buy American and proud to be in a place that keeps
it made in America.”
gram that benefits the employees behind Cutco’s
quality reputation as well as the employer and
community, said Director William Pienta.
“We really focus on team work,’’ said Brian
George, the local’s president.
In and around Olean, where cutlery-making
dates to the late 19th century, Cutco has a reputation for taking care of employees and contributing to the community. Olean, a town of about
15,000, is some 70 miles south of Buffalo.
“It’s not a perfect world, I’ll give you that,’’
said CNC operator John Venezia as CEO James
Stitt walked by out of earshot. “But that guy, he
treats us very well.”
Health benefits maintained
As part of a three-year contract negotiated
this year, the union and company found ways to
maintain health insurance benefits fully paid for
by the company while improving both pay and
defined benefit pensions. Employees have earned
profit-sharing payments since 1988.
The new agreement was overwhelmingly
approved by the membership. “Two 30-year plus
employees told me it was one of the best negotiation experiences they have ever had,” George
said. “That says a lot in this economy.”
As an example of Cutco’s community orientation, the company during the negotiations
declined to follow a recommendation of its health
insurance administrator and switch to mail order
prescriptions to save money.
Stitt said he figures such a move would have
shifted about half of self-insured Cutco’s $1.2
million in pharmaceutical purchases out of town
to the detriment of local business.
“We just can’t do that,’’ he said. “The community needs to have viable services.”
Cutco is not only made in America, it buys
American. One of its key materials, the durable
stainless steel used in its blades, is made at the
USW-represented ATI Allegheny Ludlum plant in
Louisville, Ohio.
Cutco was founded as ALCAS Cutlery in 1949
as a joint venture between ALCOA and W.R. Case
& Sons, then a leading U.S. cutlery maker, to compliment the aluminum giant’s Wear-Ever cookware
brand.
Reverse integration
USW since 1956
Cutco has been privately held since 1982 when
a management group bought the operation from
ALCOA, which was divesting consumer products
businesses. Sales have grown since then from under $6 million a year to over $250 million last year.
Production employees have been USW represented since 1956. There were some rocky years
with strikes in 1972 and 1975, but by 2002 relations were so improved that Cutco received the
AFL-CIO Union Label & Service Trade Department Labor-Management Award. The USW made
the nomination.
Today Local 5429 is one of the most active
in District 4 with an engaged leadership and a
successful labor-management cooperation pro4
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
John Venezia
Photos by Darrell Gronemeier
Instead of moving work to outside contractors
as so many employers have done, Cutco has done
the opposite and moved work in-house that had
been done elsewhere.
To better control quality and production
volume, Cutco now makes its own wooden block
holders for knife sets, produces its own injection
molded handles and makes its own scissors from
forgings produced at a subsidiary shop in Syracuse, N.Y. All three of those jobs had previously
been done outside.
Maintaining quality is a key business strategy
for Cutco, which sells its goods through a direct
sales subsidiary, Vector Marketing.
The company bought Vector, which had been
its largest sales distributor, in 1985. Vector hires
Robin DeStevens
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
5
Steve Mientkiewicz
How to Purchase
Photo by Darrell Gronemeier
To find an authorized
independent CUTCO
Cutlery sales representative near you, visit
www.cutco.com or call
1-800-828-0448.
tens of thousands of college students as
contract sales representatives to demonstrate products in homes. The presentation typically includes cutting a penny in
half with Cutco scissors.
Bernie Hostein, a retired assistant
to the USW International President,
sold Cutco knives as a young man more
than 50 years ago and recalls cutting the
penny for homemakers. He kept the demonstration set and had them refurbished a
few years ago.
“To make a long story short, I still
use them, my wife still uses them,” he
said. “They can’t wear out.”
Forever guarantee
The quality promise includes an unusual “forever guarantee” that covers the
purchaser and anyone who might later
inherit or purchase the knives.
A service center of 26 employees at
Cutco cleans, sharpens and refurbishes
knives that are mailed in by customers. Some 400 to 450 packages arrive
every day, George said. It’s not unusual
for them to service cutlery sets that are
several decades old.
“This is going to look the way it did
when they bought it in 1953,” service
center worker Barb Pickett said of vintage knives returned for refurbishment.
6
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
“They will look gorgeous.”
Although robots have taken over
ergonomically dangerous tasks, skilled
crafts people still perform some of the
manufacturing process by hand.
Bill Lowery, a veteran of 42 years,
has been a hand finisher for the last 25
years, giving knife blades a final sharpening. He previously made pocket knives
and sporting knives by hand.
“When I started here it was almost all
hand operations and very little automation,’’ he said. “Now, there is more automation and robotics and very few hand
operations.”
Steve Mientkiewicz, a 13-year
employee who joined the company
after retiring from the U.S. Navy, grinds
Cutco’s trademarked serrated-type edge
called Double D on hunting knife blades,
a smaller volume product.
“People who buy them look for that
hand work,’’ he said. “Every one is a
little different and that is what makes it
unique to the customer.”
Quality at a glance
Mientkiewicz works off blue prints
showing specifications for each style
of knife that he makes and can tell at a
glance when he has hit the mark or has
made that rare mistake.
“As far as working conditions, they
take nice care of you here and they try to
really look out for safety, and quality is
one of their top priorities, which I like,”
Mientkiewicz said.
“It’s nice to have a partnership with
the union too. The USW looks out for
things that are beyond my knowledge,
like NAFTA trade implications, fair labor
practices, even representation in Congress. It’s good to have that representation.”
Bandages were rarely seen on fingers
even though sharp blades are everywhere
in the shop and the hand work is close to
grinders and guarded punch presses.
Injury incident rates have declined
dramatically in recent years, both union
and management officials said. New
processes are designed with ergonomics
in mind, and the labor-management program identifies and resolves production
problems that have led to injuries.
Lacerations, once common, are controlled through use of personal protective
equipment including cut-resistant gloves,
said George, a former health and safety
chairman.
“In a knife factory, you can’t entirely
eliminate the issue but we have definitely
minimized it,” he said. “We’re very committed to safety.”
O
ne of the first things you notice
about the Consol Energy Center, the new home of the Pittsburgh Penguins, is a gigantic
glass atrium that allows the interior to be
bathed in natural light.
The glass, all 65,000 square feet of
it, was fabricated by members of USW
Local 9445-20 at PDC Glass and Metal
Services Inc. in Cheswick, Pa.
“It’s something to see,’’ said Unit
President Dan Krystek.
The Consol Energy Center replaced
the Penguins’ former home, the domed
Pittsburgh Civic Arena, built in 1961.
The locally-procured glass played a
role in the Consol Energy Center becoming the first National Hockey League
arena to receive the U.S. Green Building
Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design) Gold certification.
The Consol arena project received
high marks for water use
reduction, recycled materials, regional
materials, demolition and construction
waste diversion, certified wood and energy efficiency.
Employees of PDC at Cheswick, a
unit of United Glass Corp., were organized into the USW in November 2004
and ratified their first contract in June
2005. They are readying for negotiations
to replace their second contract.
The PDC members are part of an
active USW glass council directed by
conference chair Tim Tuttle. The council
represents about 14,000 workers who
make auto and truck glass, office and residential energy efficient windows, fiber
optic cable, glass containers, cookware
and applications for electronic devices.
In other glass council news:
• Container
Locals representing employees of
Owens Illinois, Verallia, (formerly Saint
Gobain Container Inc.) and Anchor
Glass Container met in Toledo, Ohio
with representatives of the Mold Making
Negotiating Committee, the Alliance for
American Manufacturing and the BlueGreen Alliance to discuss and explore the
possibilities of partnering and focusing
efforts on American manufacturing and a
new green economy.
• Consumer tableware
At press time, locals at both Libbey
Glass and Anchor Hocking were in negotiations over new contracts for approximately 2,000 USW members in Toledo
and Lancaster, Ohio.
The USW Council at World Kitchen,
made up of three local unions from Corning, N.Y., Greencastle and Charleroi, Pa.,
were focusing attention on the company’s
misguided pursuit of a behavioral based
safety program.
• Float and flat glass
Local Union 474 at PPG in Fresno,
Calif., met with Tuttle, International
Vice President Fred Redmond, District
12 Director Robert LaVenture and PPG
manufacturing team members to discuss
items of mutual interest in preparation for
upcoming contract negotiations slated to
begin in May 2011.
The USW Council at PNA (Pilkington) has been engaged in discussions
with company officials over affordable
health-care coverage.
• High-tech products
Local 1016 in Harrodsburg, Ky., is
seeing substantial investment from their
employer, Corning Inc., in the form
of two new glass tanks. One tank will
be dedicated to Gorilla Glass, a highly
durable glass used in computers, cell
phones, MP3 players and other electronic
products. The second will be an experimental tank focused on the
manufacture of photovoltaic
glass used in solar energy applications.
AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
7
Leo W. Gerard
T
he 1,300 plus delegates to the
2010 USW Health, Safety
and Environment Conference
seemed to collectively hold
their breath when the names of 38 men
and women who died at represented
workplaces over the previous year
scrolled before them.
“It brought tears to my eyes and I’m
a strong man,’’ said Lester McDonald,
president of Local 9777-29 at Gerdau
Ameristeel in Joliet, Ill. “It was like I
lost a family member.”
The solemn memorial service was a
quiet moment in a busy week of training and motivation aimed at building
the union’s voice and power to better
identify and address problems that maim
and kill USW members at work.
The conference, known for its practical workshops and national speakers,
drew much more than the anticipated
attendance of 800. The overflow was a
sign, said Health, Safety and Environment Director Mike Wright, of how
serious the union and its members take
the issue.
“This is very valuable, well worth it
every year,’’ said Fran Arabia, recording
secretary of Local 1196 at the specialty
steelmaker Allegheny Ludlum in Brackenridge, Pa., and an authorized OSHA
outreach instructor.
“You get the sense of family right
off the bat. You hear the stories, and the
education that you get – from the tragic
fatality list to all of the courses – I take
back to my local every time.”
Injuries, deaths mount
Even though decades of struggles
by workers and their unions have led to
8
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
significant improvements in
working conditions, the toll of workplace injuries, illnesses and deaths
remains enormous. Thousands of workers are killed and millions more suffer
injury or disease every year.
Employers too often discourage
reporting of work-related injuries and
illnesses and fail to address identified
hazards. At the same time, they push for
increased production from a downsized
work force that is often undertrained and
overworked.
The conference roll call of those
killed at work included Americans and
Canadians, men and women, young
and old. They worked in a wide variety
of industries represented by the USW.
Their tragic accidents were all different.
“But they shared one thing in common. They were all heroes, not because they gave their lives. None of
them gave their lives.
Their lives were brutally stripped away,’’
Wright said.
“They were heroes because of how
they lived. Every day
they went to work in a
job that was often difficult, sometimes dirty and
ultimately dangerous, to
earn a living, to make a life,
to support a family, to build a
community.”
The first few days of the conference
were open only to union members. As
is the custom, members of management
were invited to joint discussions later in
the week.
Workshops were plentiful with
Wes Krause
Local 2-116, Wisconsin
Kathy Burris
TMC worker trainer
more than 120 sessions scheduled
throughout the week – enough so
members could tailor their studies
to fit their local situations.
Lester McDonald, for example,
was interested in addressing issues
including short staffing, overtime,
fatigue and the cultural differences
that come from a multilingual work
force.
“There’s so much information to
soak in at one time,” he said. “I’m keying in on the crucial ones covering what
I’m dealing with right now.”
Workshops included basics such
as establishing and strengthening
health and safety committees, creating and conducting union health
and safety surveys, preparing for
joint labor-management health and
safety committee meetings and
techniques to identify hazards and
involve members in the process.
Other examples included secrets
to effective machine safeguarding,
identifying hazards in the workplace, using logic tree diagramming
to identify root causes of hazards,
responding to workplace emergencies and lessons learned from
Chemical Safety Board
investigations.
Linda Rae Murray, president of the
American Public Health Association
and chief medical officer of the Cook
County Department of Public Health,
kicked off the union-only meetings with
a speech that encouraged continued
activism.
Those in public health, she said,
must redouble efforts to put in place the
necessary policies, and take action
to that will achieve health equity in
the United States.
Not doing enough
Chris Naas
Local 550, Paducah, Ky.
Photos by Steve Dietz
Government agencies are not
doing a good enough job in keeping workers safe, she said, while
recognizing that over 400,000 lives
have been saved since the passage
40 years ago of the Occupational
Safety and Health Act.
Noting that OSHA has only
enough staff to inspect each workplace every 137 years, Murray, a
physician, called for a new approach to health and safety based on
worker involvement.
“We need to do the right thing,”
she said. “Workers know when something is dangerous. We need to make
sure workers have the power they need
to stop dangerous work, not just refuse
it, stop it.”
Know your friends and enemies, she
said. Be clear which side you are on.
Management may be safety professionals but often are required to act counter
to employee interests. If the boss says to
run a plant until all the equipment fails,
that’s what they feel forced to do.
Murray called health and safety a
“core labor issue,” and called on union
members to take collective action to
improve safety and health conditions.
“We need you to not be afraid,’’
Murray told the worker activists. “We
need you to stand up and talk about
what you learned at this conference and
what you learn in your union meetings.”
“
The work you
do saves lives. I
can’t think of
anything more
honorable in life...
You are unsung
heroes.
”
Trade unionists know, Murray said,
that “the only way to make progress is
through collective action, and the only
way to improve things is through solidarity. That’s the only way it has ever
happened and that’s the only way it will
happen in the future.”
In what was believed to be a first,
the conference heard from the nation’s
four top workplace safety officials:
David Michaels, assistant secretary
of labor for Occupational Safety and
Health; Joe Main, assistant secretary
of labor for Mine Safety and Health;
Rafael Moure-Eraso, chairman of the
U.S. Chemical Safety Board and Glenn
Podonsky, chief Health, Safety and Security officer with the U.S. Department
of Energy.
Michaels said OSHA under the
Obama administration has returned to
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
9
basics – “that is, establishing up-to-date
workplace safety and health regulations
based on strong science and emphasizing strong and fair enforcement of those
standards.”
Reform goals on his plate include
bringing management and workers together to prevent injuries and strengthen
OSHA penalties that haven’t increased
in the last 40 years.
Currently, Michaels said OSHA
penalties are too low to have a positive
impact and endorsed legislation including the Miner Safety and Health Act of
2010 that would increase them.
“
The only way to make
progress is through
collective action and the
only way to improve
things is through
solidarity. That’s the only
way it has ever happened
and that’s the only way it
will happen in
the future.
”
Michaels told the story of a 2001
sulfuric acid explosion at a Delaware
refinery that killed a worker by the
name of Jeff Davis, a father of five children whose body was literally dissolved
by acid. The OSHA penalty for his
death was only $175,000. In the same
incident, a federal EPA Clean Water Act
citation for killing fish and crabs totaled
$10 million.
“How can we tell Jeff Davis’ wife
and his five children that the penalty
for killing fish and crabs is 50 times
higher than the penalty for killing their
husband and father,” Michaels asked.
Nothing more important
International President Leo W.
Gerard addressed the conference twice
– once in the union-only session and
again in the joint session with management.
10
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
There is nothing
we do that is more
important than working to ensure a safe
workplace, he told the
union activists in the opening
session.
“The work you do saves
lives. I can’t think of anything more honorable in life
except maybe a religious
calling,” Gerard said. “You are
unsung heroes.”
Later, with management
members in the audience, Gerard
decried a series of accidents this
year that killed seven workers at
the Tesoro refinery in Anacortes,
Wash., 11 more workers in the
Gulf of Mexico on the Deep Water
Horizon drilling rig, and 29 coal
miners at Massey Energy’s
Upper Big Branch mine in
West Virginia.
Specifically, Gerard
strongly criticized the petroleum industry for whining
on the day of the Tesoro
explosion that the industry
doesn’t get enough credit for
improvements in incident
reports that typically record
minor injuries.
“If you are management in petroleum, take this
home with you,” Gerard
said. “There is a difference
between a worker getting
killed and a worker spraining their ankle… to put
that in the same category as
someone getting burned up and
killed is unacceptable. This union
won’t stand for it. We’re going
to do something about it – either
with the industry or by ourselves
through legislation.”
Gerard also took aim at
behavioral safety programs that
blame and discipline workers for
their injuries rather than locating
and eliminating the underlying
hazards.
Such programs wrongly focus
on worker behavior as the cause
of job injuries and accidents
and send workers the message,
“If you get injured, it’s your
fault.” They commonly use financial
incentives, peer pressure and threat of
discipline.
Culture of risk
Gerard criticized the “culture of
risk” in some corporations that leads to
cutting or delaying preventative maintenance, farming work out to inexperienced contractors and violating a
corporation’s own safety rules.
As a startling example, Gerard mentioned the infamous 2005 explosion at
a BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, that
killed 15 and injured over 170 others.
Most of those killed were incinerated in
portable work trailers that were placed
near refinery operations. Under pressure
from the government, the industry later
agreed to stop using portable trailers in
hazardous locations.
“If you want to know why I’m so
full of anger at the petroleum industry,
let me tell you what they’ve done after
that,” Gerard said. “Not in all places,
but in far too many, they replaced those
trailers with tents. I think somebody has
got to go to jail.”
Most employers, however, have a
stronger commitment to occupational
safety and health and work with the
union, Gerard said.
In steel, for example,
the USW has created a global safety
committee with ArcelorMittal whose
members visit plants around the world
to support the best safety and health
practices. In paper, the union just completed joint training with International
Paper, a giant in the industry.
“There are lots of employers who
are working with us and have the right
values and the right instincts. They’re
not the ones I’m angry with,’’ Gerard
said. “I’m angry at the ones who talk
the talk but don’t
walk the walk.”
New Safety App Now Available
Mike Wright
Health, Safety and Environment Director
Photos by Steve Dietz
The USW Health Safety and Environment Department has
developed an easy and accessible chemical safety reference for
workers that is now available as an iPhone app.
The app allows you to search the New Jersey Material Safety
Data Sheets (MSDS) database to find information on workplace
exposure limits, health hazards, workplace controls, personal
protective equipment, handling and storage, and emergency
information.
You can also flip through an electronic version of the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH) Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards or search
for a chemical by name in the index to view its properties,
exposure limits, recommended personal protective equipment and first aid.
Search USW in the iTunes app store.
Amber Miller
Local 07246
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
11
A
I
n a big win for the USW, the
Obama administration is investigating our claims that China
is stealing green manufacturing
jobs from American workers through a
broad array of unfair and illegal trade
policies and practices.
China’s violations of free trade
rules, the USW contends, have helped
Chinese companies expand their share
of the world market for wind turbines,
solar panels, nuclear power plant products, advanced batteries, energy-efficient vehicles and other clean energy
equipment at the expense of jobs in the
United States and elsewhere.
“This case draws a line in the sand,”
said International President Leo W.
Gerard. “We can’t rely on unending
diplomatic niceties and non-productive
photo opportunities masquerading as
serious talks. We’re hemorrhaging
jobs, seeing our bilateral trade deficit
skyrocket and jeopardizing our future.”
The administration’s investigation
of a USW petition filed under Section
301 of U.S. trade law is a first step in a
process that could lead to the filing of
trade cases against Beijing before the
World Trade Organization (WTO). A
successful WTO challenge would require China to reform its rogue practices and comply with agreements made
when it joined the WTO in 2001.
We want fair trade
Trade lawyers representing the USW delivered 80
boxes holding copies of the union’s Section 301 petitions to the United States Trade Representative.
12
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
Photo by Gary Dinunno/Page One Photography
The decision “sends the message
that America is not going to stand by
while our jobs get outsourced,’’ Gerard
said. “China and our trading partners
need to understand that we want fair
trade and that we’re not going to allow
unfair and illegal trade practices to
deny our farmers, workers and businesses of the opportunity to compete on
a level playing field.”
The administration’s decision to
accept the petition, announced on Oct.
15 by U.S. Trade Representative Ron
Kirk, is significant for millions of
working people who have seen their
jobs disappear because of China’s trade
practices.
While the petition focuses on
renewable energy products, China’s
actions in that emerging industry
are characteristic of how it does
business in other sectors where the
USW has members. “We’re standing up for American workers. We’re
standing up for jobs. We’re standing
for families and our communities,’’
Gerard said.
“
The United States
cannot stand on
the sidelines.
”
The USW’s petition, more than
5,000 pages long and 18 inches
thick, was filed with the trade representative’s office in September by
the union’s Washington, D.C. trade
counsel, Stewart and Stewart. It
contends China’s central and provincial governments have used dozens
of measures that violate WTO rules
to jump ahead of the United States
as a leading producer and exporter of
green technologies.
Discriminatory rules
Those include discriminatory
laws and regulations, technology
transfer requirements, restrictions
on access to critical raw materials
controlled by China, and massive
trade distorting subsidies that have
crippled U.S. companies and killed
U.S. jobs.
Together these practices have
given Chinese producers an unfair
and illegal upper hand in accessing
investment, technology, raw materials and markets while foreclosing the
same opportunity to American workers and manufacturers, the petition
contends.
“We take the USW’s claims very
seriously, and we are vigorously
investigating them,’’ Trade Representative Kirk said in accepting the
petition for investigation.
“This is a vitally important sector
for the United States,” Kirk added.
“Green technology will be an engine
for the jobs of the future, and this
administration is committed to ensuring a level playing field for American
workers, business and green technology entrepreneurs.”
Unless the unfair practices detailed in the petition are derailed, the
USW believes China will continue to
dramatically increase its dominance
in green and renewable power.
“It’s a national priority to reduce
our dependence on foreign energy
supplies,” Gerard said. “But, if all
we do is exchange our dependence
on foreign oil for a dependence on
Chinese alternative and renewable
energy production equipment, we
will have traded away our nation’s
energy, economic and job security.”
The USW’s action received broad
support in Washington after it was
filed. Letters to President Obama
supporting the petition were signed
by 185 members of Congress and 43
Senators.
“The United States cannot stand
on the sidelines,’’ said the House
letter released by U.S. Rep. Sander
M. Levin (D-Mich.). “It must take
urgent and decisive enforcement action to secure a level playing field for
fair competition for green technology
manufacturers.”
The Obama administration and
Congress have promoted green jobs
as a vital component of a long-term
growth strategy for the United States.
But if China’s illegal actions are left
unchecked, the promise of green jobs
will go unfulfilled.
“America is losing its leadership
of this sector in large part because of
China’s plans to control this industry no matter what,” said International Vice President Tom Conway.
“They’re breaking every rule in the
book.”
World Trade Organization dispute settlement
panel has broadly upheld
Washington’s right to place
tariffs on unfairly subsidized goods
from China.
“This is a significant win for
American workers and businesses
affected by unfairly traded imports,’’
U.S. Trade Representative (USTR)
Ron Kirk said of the ruling, which
was made public on Oct. 22.
“This case makes clear that the
Obama administration, including
the USTR and our colleagues at the
Department of Commerce, will vigorously defend the application of our
trade law remedies,’’ Kirk added.
The panel upheld the right of the
United States to impose duties that
compensate for both dumped and
subsidized products from non-market
economies like China.
In September 2008, China challenged the United States on antidumping duties, which are used to
compensate for unfair pricing, and
countervailing duties that are used to
offset improper government subsidies.
The case specifically upheld duties on circular welded pipe, certain
pneumatic off-the-road tires, lightwalled rectangular pipe and tube and
laminated woven sacks.
China’s challenge revolved
mostly around technical questions,
including whether state-owned enterprises and state-owned commercial
banks could properly be considered
public bodies that provide subsidies.
The ruling comes at a time of
increasing tensions between China
and the United States over trade and
currency. The Obama administration
has agreed to investigate a complaint
brought by the USW over China’s
support for its clean energy industries.
“These findings are especially
important at a time when the United
States is vigorously implementing
WTO-consistent tools to address
China’s unfair trade balances and
to address global imbalances,’’ said
U.S. Rep. Sander M. Levin (DMich).
Both countries have 60 days to
file an appeal.
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
13
A
merican tire workers are seeing growth in jobs and their
companies are gaining market
share a year after President
Obama imposed controversial tariffs on
certain Chinese tire exports.
The USW pointed to a report by the
Alliance for American Manufacturing
(AAM) that shows the tariffs achieved
the desired positive effect on U.S. manufacturers and their workers in the initial
opening year.
September provided for three years of
relief with tariffs of 35 percent in the
first year, 30 percent in the second year
and 25 percent in the third year.
“The relief provided by President
Obama is fulfilling a promise that
permitted China’s entry into the World
Trade Organization (WTO) – and that
promise was American workers and
companies would not be harmed by nonmarket economy distortions in China,”
Gerard said.
Production by U.S. facilities increased by over 15 percent, or by more
disruption, the U.S. would be allowed to
limit the import of those goods.
The USW acted on that agreement.
In 2009, the union sought an investigation into an unprecedented surge of Chinese tires under Section 421 of the Trade
Act of 1974, which was designed to give
domestic industries and their workers
breathing room from import surges that
cause market disruption. Obama imposed the tariffs after investigations and
rulings by the U.S. International Trade
Commission (ITC) and the Department
of Commerce.
“Section 421 of the trade law is
doing what it is intended to do,” Gerard added. “It has reversed a massive
115 new production workers since the
start of 2010.
AAM reported a similar story at
Cooper Tire in Findlay, Ohio, where
100 new hourly employees were
hired in addition to salaried workers.
In Texarkana, Ark., Cooper Tire has
hired 250 new hourly workers since
the relief went into effect.
Imports from China, which had
surged during 2004 to 2008, declined
34.2 percent in the first six months
after relief was imposed.
When the ITC examined the surge
in tire imports from China, it discovered material injury to the domestic
industry through continuous declines
The USW local in Tyler worked
with plant management in the years
before the closure to improve productivity and expand the plant’s flexibility. It became a leader in productivity,
safety, waste reduction and other
categories tracked by Goodyear but
still could not survive.
Former Local President Jim Wansley, who worked at Tyler for nearly
40 years, told the ITC that the closure
took a toll on the entire community of
about 100,000.
“Jobs at the plant paid good
wages and benefits, enabling workers
to lead decent middle class lives, buy
homes, send their kids to college and
I
“With relief in place, American
workers are finally beginning to see jobs
return to their communities. We must
maintain that momentum and allow the
tariffs to stay in effect for the full three
years,” said International President Leo
W. Gerard, who led the effort.
In Union City, Tenn., for example,
the tariffs have helped keep open a
USW-represented Goodyear Tire and
Rubber Co. plant that competes with
Chinese tires and has been threatened
with closure.
“The tariff has been a success story
for Union City,’’ said Local 878L President Ricky Waggoner. “Our ticket has
steadily increased since the tariffs went
in.”
Waggoner said the consumer tire
plant, which Goodyear can contractually close at any time, has even hired
new employees to maintain its manning
level.
The president’s decision last
14
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
than 10 million tires based on Rubber
Manufacturing Association data, the
report concluded.
Domestic producers such as Goodyear and Cooper Tire & Rubber experienced production gains of between 9
percent and 35 percent, the report said.
Employment and overtime are up.
International Vice President Tom
Conway, who leads the USW’s bargaining with Goodyear, said “there is
no doubt that the relief authorized by
the president has reversed the massive
decline in domestic production.”
Goodyear plants that produce tires
impacted by the trade case hired 130
new workers in 2010, Conway noted.
The plants are working an average of 20
percent overtime.
As part of China’s acceptance into
the WTO, its leaders agreed that if the
United States experienced import surges
of Chinese goods that caused market
decline in domestic production and
provided much needed relief to workers,
their employers and communities from a
flood of Chinese tires.”
Resisting free traders
In coming down on the side of
American industry and its workers,
the president resisted the arguments of
free traders, media pundits and China’s
government.
“These skeptics were all dreadfully
wrong. The sky hasn’t fallen. A trade
war never materialized,” said Scott Paul,
executive director of the AAM. “And,
America’s tire workers and domestic
facilities are recording gains in jobs,
production and market share.”
By the report’s release date, workers at Michelin plants producing the
BFGoodrich and Uniroyal brands, for
example, were working seven days a
week at around 15 percent overtime, the
report said. Those facilities brought on
in U.S. domestic capacity, production, shipments and employment from
2004 to 2008, a period of general
economic growth.
Notably, domestic capacity
declined from 226.8 million tires to
186.4 million tires during the fouryear period while actual production
dropped from 218.4 million tires to
160.3 million tires.
As capacity utilization fell from
96.3 percent to 86 percent, the number of production workers substantially declined as did their hours
worked and wages.
Tyler plant a victim
Thousands of jobs were cut
by domestic tire plants including
those at Goodyear’s Tyler, Texas,
plant, which permanently closed
in 2006 with most workers gone
by the end of 2007. Its tires directly
competed with Chinese imports.
save for retirement,’’ he said. “These
are the kind of jobs that support an
entire community as families pay
their doctor bills, buy new cars and
contribute to local charities.”
nternational President Leo W. Gerard has been appointed by President
Barack Obama to the President’s
Advisory Committee on Trade Policy
and Negotiations.
Obama appointed Gerard and several
other influential leaders to the committee
on Sept. 15. Obama is expected to announce additional members to the committee at a later date.
Gerard said he was pleased to accept
the advisory position.
“International trade and how it is conducted are of vital importance to the future
of the United States and to the members of
the union I am so privileged to represent,’’
Gerard said.
“I am grateful to the president for the
confidence he has shown in me, and I
pledge to work closely with the administration to help resolve some of the issues
we face in maintaining a fair trading system among nations.”
Gerard is a strong advocate for enforcing existing U.S. trade laws. Under his
direction the USW has vigorously sought
relief from unfair trade practices for
domestic industries that employ USW
members.
The committee is part of a private
sector advisory system established
by Congress in 1974 to ensure that
U.S. trade policy and trade negotiation objectives adequately reflect U.S.
commercial and economic interests.
It is made up of members who broadly
represent key sectors and groups of the
economy.
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
15
C
hinese makers of seamless carbon
and alloy steel line and pressure
pipe sold in the United States
at less than fair value are being
ordered to pay antidumping and countervailing duties.
“This is the sixth successful trade case
against Chinese imported pipe products that
we’ve participated in since June 2007,” said
International President Leo W. Gerard. “All
affirm the predatory practices of dumping
and subsidy that steal good American jobs.”
The U.S. International Trade Commission paved the way for the duties on Oct. 15
when its six members voted unanimously
that the practice threatened the U.S. industry
with material injury.
As a result, the U.S. Commerce Department levied antidumping duties ranging
from 48.99 percent to 98.74 percent to offset
below-market pricing by Chinese exporters. It also imposed countervailing duties
of 13.66 percent to 53.65 percent to offset
Chinese government subsidies.
Seamless carbon pipe can range up to
16 inches in diameter and is mostly used in
petrochemical processing and refining applications.
The case was initiated jointly by the
USW and three producers: U.S. Steel
with pipe plants in Lorain, Ohio and
Fairfield, Ala.; TMK IPSCO with
plants in Ambridge and Koppel,
Pa., and V&M Star with plants in
Youngstown, Ohio, and in Houston, Texas.
China’s state capitalism
As the largest industrial
union in North America, the
USW continually takes the
brunt of Chinese
AP Photo
16
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
government polices that are not based on
market principles, but rather on a model of
state capitalism that has the strategic goals of
cornering export markets and creating jobs
for Chinese citizens.
While the number of domestic production
workers making this specialized seamless
pipe is relatively small, more than half of the
500 workers employed in the sector have lost
their jobs since 2008.
The shutdowns and layoffs were clearly
attributable to a Chinese import surge, U.S.
Rep. Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) told the ITC in a
hearing held the month before the decision.
“Chinese producers should not benefit
from their unfair and purposeful actions
by taking jobs and profits from American
workers and businesses,” she said. “There is
simply no doubt that unfair trade has harmed
domestic producers of seamless pipe.”
At the same hearing in September, International Vice President Tom Conway told
the ITC that the industry was practically shut
down for much of last year.
U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen
(center) displays photo of
Tony Swanningson and
his family
Economic, emotional strain
“Hundreds of people lost their jobs,’’
Conway told the commissioners. “Imagine
being out of work for months at a time and
the economic and emotional strain that puts
on those working men and women and their
families and communities.”
The workers and their families suffered
not because of anything they or the domestic
producers have done wrong, but because of
“deliberate, mercantilist policies in China,”
Conway testified.
Seamless pipe producers in China benefit
from a variety of subsidies that have let them
flood our market with dumped imports that
undersell domestic producers, Conway said.
In particular, he singled out state-owned
enterprises like Baoshan, Tianjin Pipe Co.,
Hengyan and Valin.
“We cannot and should not be expected
to compete against such unfair import competition,’’ Conway said. “It cannot be done
no matter how hard we work and no matter
how great the productivity gains.”
Steelworkers, however, can beat the
competition from any country so long as the
competition is fair, Conway told the commission.
“USW members work very hard and play
by the rules. They expect others to do so, and
if not, they expect our government to make
them by enforcing the trade rules.”
I
n another victory for the USW, the
U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has affirmed tariffs on
coated paper from China and Indonesia that is used in high-end printing.
It’s the latest achievement in the fair
trade battle led by International President
Leo W. Gerard to protect USW jobs and
American manufacturing industries.
The 6-0 ITC vote showed that predatory trade practices by the Chinese and
Indonesian exports are unfair, illegal and
injurious to USW members and their
employers.
“We welcome this ruling after a yearlong investigation and all of the public
hearings. Painfully, the level of injury
required for this decision is the closure
of coated paper mills and the thousands
of jobs lost preceding this petition,”
Gerard said.
“Trade laws between nations must
be enforced with government fact finding and the power to defend jobs and
industries with strong tariff penalties for
import violations.”
The petition that led to the decision
was brought more than a year earlier by
the USW and three paper companies:
Appleton Coated LLC, NewPage Corp.
and Sappi Fine Paper North America.
The vote allowed the Department of
Commerce to impose antidumping duties
to offset below-market pricing and countervailing duties to offset government
subsidies.
“
Most of these mills
are in rural areas and
are the very lifeblood
of their communities.
”
Antidumping margins on Indonesian
imports were set at 20 percent and range
from 7.6 percent to 135 percent on Chinese imports. Countervailing duties are
18 percent for Indonesia and 18 percent
to 178 percent for China.
“We will not ignore the efforts of
foreign competitors who want to violate
international trade standards to succeed
at the expense of our union members’
jobs,” said International Vice President
Jon Geenen, who leads paper bargaining.
“That’s a fight we’ll never back away
from.”
The USW, 19 members of Congress
and paper executives all urged the ITC to
approve the tariffs. Yet it was a handwritten letter from a union papermaker,
Tony Swanningson, that drove home the
need for relief.
“My job was stolen because somebody broke the law and that’s not right,’’
wrote Swanningson, a member of Local
2-144 in Wisconsin.
In his letter, which was read to the
ITC by U.S. Rep. Steve Kagen, Swanningson said the dumping of foreign
government-subsidized paper puts U.S.
employers, employees and their families
at risk.
“This kind of cheating hurts people
like me and my family,” Swanningson
said. “It hurts the production workers on
the floor and it hurts our managers too.”
Massively subsidized imports from
China and Indonesia undersold domestic
producers more than 82 percent of the
time by margins as high as 25 percent,
the ITC said in a pre-hearing report.
Wages and hours worked all suffered
serious decline.
“Most of these mills are in rural areas
and are the lifeblood of their communities,’’ Gerard testified. “When they are
shuttered the entire community suffers.”
Kagen represents a region of Wisconsin known as Paper Valley, where 20
paper companies once operated, many
of which are now closed. He called for a
level playing field.
“Look, we know that no corporation
can defeat a government that manipulates the value of its currency, subsidizes
its industries with cheap labor, has no
environmental standards, no social safety
nets, and offers free raw materials and
energy,” he testified.
U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud worked
as a Steelworker in a paper mill in
East Millinocket, Maine, for nearly 30
years. He told the ITC he watched his
hometown decline when the paper mill
shut down. The mill provided nearly 80
percent of the tax base.
“Once the mill shut down, the town
didn’t know if it would have enough
money to keep the school running, and
the senior class didn’t know if it would
be able to graduate,” he testified.
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
17
D
elegates to the 2010 paper
sector conference chose
strengthening health and
safety language in their
contracts as the number one goal for
ongoing industry bargaining.
“Every single week a member of
ours is disabled so that they can’t work
for the rest of their life,’’ International
Vice President Jon Geenen, who leads
the USW’s paper sector, told the conference. “It’s time we take more control
over health and safety so we don’t have
to surrender our lives to our employers.”
Over 400 delegates representing
some 120,000 USW members in the
pulp, paper and paper converting industries attended the four-day conference
held in Pittsburgh this August to set
bargaining goals.
Delegates exchanged information,
discussed problems and developed
strategies to strengthen union contracts
and the industries that employ them.
They agreed to build member activism
to support those goals.
The USW continues to push for
better, more secure contracts. In recent years, the union has moved away
from company-dominated location-bylocation negotiations where employers
would attempt to implement national
agendas locally. The new centralized approach gives the union equal bargaining
power and more say on the shop floor.
Pattern agreements
Pattern agreements spell out wage
increases, health insurance premiums
and other key economic benefits so that
local negotiations can focus on important workplace issues.
“It is now well established that
USW paper workers take a pro-active
approach to bargaining,” Geenen said.
“Our members are committed to aggressively moving our agenda forward.”
As part of the plan to strengthen
bargaining and activism, delegates to
this year’s conference agreed to play a
more active role in political and policy
issues and to build stronger international
ties with other unions.
Recommendations for improving
health and safety language came from a
USW paper member survey that showed
many serious shortcomings in current
programs. The survey was conducted
among mill workers over an 18-month
period.
The recommendations focused on
a more active role for workers and the
union in health and safety. Members
called for more, better and specific
training, support for and continuous
bargaining on work design and the application of lessons learned from other
industries.
The survey pointed to the need for
inherently safer chemicals in production
processes and the elimination of company programs that suppress reporting
of injuries and unsafe incidents.
It put a spotlight on the need for
building awareness and tools to deal
with machine hazards and the dangers
of combustible dust. Delegates called on
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to adopt a comprehensive standard regulating combustible
dust in the workplace.
During the conference, delegates
met with their councils to devise goals
for paper bargaining policy, discuss
problems and elect a standing policy
committee that will meet periodically to
discuss progress and ideas and suggest
course adjustments, if necessary.
Delegates agreed to retain the goal
of negotiating a three-year contract
unless a master agreement or other strategic objectives are obtained that move
bargaining and paper workers forward.
That goal has led to progress in consolidating contract expiration dates.
Maintaining the 80/20 split on health
insurance premium cost sharing is another goal that was carried over. It has
stopped a push by paper companies to
implement 50/50 cost sharing and led to
a percentage cap on what workers must
pay.
While they want to innovate and
improve health care plans, delegates
decided they would continue the goal of
refusing to waive their right to negotiate
over plan design changes.
With the crash of the stock market
two years ago, many retirement plans
took a big hit. Improving retirement security therefore remains a key bargaining
objective.
Pension programs must provide a secure retirement, include disability coverage and ensure that a significant percentage of replacement income is based on
company contributions.
Successorship language protecting
workers and the terms of labor agreements in the event of a sale of a facility or company has been included in
more than half of the industry contracts,
Geenen said. This has protected 50,000
workers and their families during asset
and plant sales.
Delegates listed successorship as a
goal for those who do not have it yet
in their contracts. They called for veto
power for those that have the language.
Another primary goal agreed to by the
delegates is maintaining and improving
reasonable economic packages and resisting two-tier wage and benefit systems.
Other issues that are part of the bargaining policy include maintaining vacation time, negotiating 401(k) administration, achieving wage retention in layoff
and downsizing situations, developing
and achieving severance packages for
profitable mills that are shut down and
strengthening outsourcing language.
International solidarity
The day before the conference, several delegates met with a delegation of
paper workers from Unite of the United
Kingdom and Ireland, the USW’s partner
in Workers Uniting, the trans-Atlantic
trade union created in 2008.
“Dealing with employers on a global
scale is what we have to do,” said Local
801 President Ben Johnson.
Much of the discussion centered on
problems each union faces with
contracting out and management approaches toward health and safety.
Delegates agreed to increase communication, initiate a health and safety
campaign that focuses on fixing hazards
rather than blaming workers and engage
in a campaign against illegal logging and
other global solidarity efforts.
Unite members spoke about the challenges they face, the state of their paper
industry and UK politics. They participated in council meetings and shared
information on common problems.
“Our members are building solidarity across the industry and the globe,
and that has enabled us to make great
progress on a number of fronts, including
at the bargaining table and on important
issues like illegal logging and fair trade,”
Geenen said.
International Vice President Jon
Geenen addresses conference
Photo by Steve Dietz
18
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
19
T
he famous chant from Barack
Obama’s campaign for the
presidency – Fired Up; Ready
to Go – quickly became the
unofficial theme of the 2010 USW
International Women’s Conference that
featured the U.S. Speaker of the House,
Nancy Pelosi.
Leeann Anderson, assistant to
International President Leo W. Gerard,
started the chanting as the October
conference
opened in
the David
L. Lawrence Convention Center in
Pittsburgh.
Anderson asked if the 1,000 delegates from across North America and
special representatives from Liberia,
the U.K. and Ireland were “fired up.”
At Anderson’s prompting, they yelled
back, “Ready to go,” and the chant took
off.
Anderson urged the delegates to get
fired up for the crucial mid-term elec-
tions that would occur two weeks after
the conference, and the Women of Steel
(WOS) proved repeatedly over the next
several days that they were ready to go.
With rollicking enthusiasm, they
campaigned for democratic candidates
and started to organize new workplaces.
The day Pelosi addressed the group
was filled with anticipation during
speeches by Los Mineros President
Napoleon Gomez and his wife Oralia; WOS director
Ann Flener, and
International Vice
Presidents Tom Conway and Carol
Landry. Then the moment came.
Pelosi walked into the room and delegates sporting buttons proclaiming
“Best Speaker Ever,” cheered wildly
and held high their “Best Speaker
Ever” signs.
Gerard introduced Pelosi, telling
the story of his mentor and friend,
the late International President
George Becker, taking him to meet
her before she became Speaker.
“George told me, ‘She is truly a
champion for working people, and
you need to work with her.’ ”
The buttons displayed all over
the convention hall were the brainchild of USW political director
Tim Waters. They showed Pelosi’s
triumphant face on the iconic World
War II image of a woman
worker in a red and white
polka dot bandana, pulling
up her sleeve to show off a
strong arm muscle.
When Pelosi became
the first woman ever elected
as Speaker in 2007, Gerard
told the WOS delegates, she
distributed similar buttons
to friends and supporters as
admission tickets to her celebration. Those buttons said,
“A Woman’s Place is in the
House... As Speaker.”
“She has never once disappointed working people,”
Gerard said, “She truly is the
best Speaker ever.”
International President Leo W. Gerard
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Thanking the USW
Photos by Steve Dietz
Pelosi thanked the USW and
WOS for aiding in Democrats’ efforts
to pass legislation to help working
families. And she said of Gerard
specifically, “Across the board and
across time, Leo Gerard has been an
unsurpassed champion for American
working families – even though he is
a Canadian.”
The Speaker noted that in the first
18 months of the Obama administration, the Democrats passed legislation
to stimulate the economy, reform
Wall Street and reform health insurance.
She again thanked the USW and
WOS, saying, “All of us in Congress
who have worked so hard for health
International Vice President Carol Landry
care as a right, not a privilege,
owe a deep debt of gratitude to
the USW. Leo Gerard knew it was
urgent and knew the path to success, and each of you, knocking on
doors and calling, all of you made
it happen.”
But all of the progress, she told
the delegates, is in danger because
Republicans would like to repeal it
or withhold funding.
After Pelosi’s address, hundreds of “fired up” Women of
Steel visited Pittsburgh’s new
casino to help with the USW effort
to organize the workers there.
Organizer Maria Somma urged
this crew of USW evangelizers to
chat with casino dealers and the
wait staff about the benefits
of union representation.
The organizers took
with them $15 gambling
vouchers that the casino had
provided the conference
and playing cards carrying
stickers with the slogans,
“Roll the dice with the
USW and you won’t lose!”
and “Go Home a Winner
with the USW!”
It was a successful – and fun — effort,
numerous organizers told
Somma. Some wrapped
tips around the cards.
Others returned the cards
with their food bills.
Also, some women from
District 10, where Pittsburgh is located, offered to set up
meetings with casino workers they
knew.
After a day of workshops on
Tuesday, the delegates complied
with Pelosi’s request to support Democrats in the mid-term
elections. The entire delegation
marched in groups from the
convention center to the USW
headquarters, handing out leaflets
supporting Democrats Joe Sestak
for U.S. Senator and Dan Onorato
for Pennsylvania Governor.
They drew attention by wearing matching USW fleece jackets
and chanting the entire way, “Fired
up; Ready to go!”
Michele Erwin
Photo by Ike Gittlen
20
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
21
P
etroleum refiners are increasingly operating their equipment
well past the point of required
maintenance, experts told the
USW’s National Oil Bargaining conference.
This “running to failure” unnecessarily puts communities and the USW
members who operate many of the
nation’s large refining complexes that
produce highly-flammable petroleum
products at great risk.
Rafael Moure-Eraso, chair of the
U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB),
told the conference that his agency sees
a “growing crisis of safety in the oil
sector.”
“It’s all about money,’’ said International Vice President Gary Beevers, who
heads the union’s oil sector. “The refiners run the units longer to sell as much
product as possible. In many cases
they’ll operate equipment until it breaks
down completely.”
situation to running a used automobile
in need of repair.
“We are seeing periods between
turnarounds in many instances being
pushed out further and further, and then
often times, changing the oil is the only
thing we do,” he said.
“We shouldn’t wait for the oil level
to drop so low that the warning light
comes on,” Nibarger said. “The risk is
the damage may already be done at that
point.”
Turnarounds take longer
Rafael Moure-Eraso, the CSB
chair, said operators have told him that
turnarounds that once occurred every
two to three years are now taking place
every four to five years.
“They have told me that broken
equipment is not immediately addressed and that workers are told to
‘work around the problem,’ ” he said.
Refiners need to strengthen their
Gary Beevers, left, Kim Nibarger
gold metal chain that was tarred black
so they could see what he was breathing.
“
We can’t leave it up
to the companies to
protect our members
because they are doing a
dismal job of it.
”
Although management talked about
shutting down the compressor and
repairing it, the decision was made to
continue operating without repairs until
the next turnaround.
“They told me, ‘We got it under
control,’ ” Montoya said.
CSB investigations of the 2005
Texas City explosion and other refinery
disasters highlighted additional safety
concerns, including job consolidation,
information, operating procedures and
process hazard analysis have been cited
nearly 650 times in the 56 completed
federal NEP inspections, Nibarger said.
He called those results “not a very
impressive record for an industry that
claims we are their most valued asset.”
It is cheaper for companies to play
the odds in not getting caught on a
compliance issue because inspections
are so rare. Even when OSHA sent letters to the refiners explaining what was
going to be inspected during the NEP,
Nibarger said they failed to fix those
problems before the inspectors arrived.
Campaign to continue
Beevers said the industry’s position
so far is that safety is their responsibility and not the union’s concern. But
he said the USW will not give up its
health and safety campaign and will
continue to bring health and safety
issues to the forefront through the next
Photos by Mike Fuentes
Conference draws 400
The three-day event, held in Texas
this September, drew about 400 participants, featured speeches on health and
safety, politics, oil product imports and
health care reform. Delegates elected
a new National Oil Bargaining (NOB)
policy committee, attended council
meetings and participated in workshops.
The industry, Beevers said, needs
to return to shorter periods between
turnarounds, the times when a refinery
is shut down for needed maintenance.
Kim Nibarger, an experienced investigator with the USW’s Health Safety
and Environment Department, likens the
22
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
mechanical integrity programs so that
problems are detected before releases
occur, Moure-Eraso said.
Mechanical integrity is at least a
contributor in the majority of accident
investigations the USW has conducted
at refineries.
Javier Montoya, president of Local
10 at the Tesoro refinery in Mandan,
N.D., said the seals on a gasoline compressor started leaking hydrogen sulfide
after a turnaround in May.
Twice a day, Montoya had to go
into the building where the compressor
is located to get readings. After feeling
nausea, he showed management his
decreased staff, operator fatigue, inadequate training, and lack of effective and
transparent process safety indicators.
The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration’s (OSHA) National
Emphasis Program (NEP) inspections are another barometer of refinery
safety.
“The companies are failing miserably,” Nibarger, the USW specialist,
said of NEP inspections during his
conference address.
“And this isn’t like some high standard or a sign of excellence to comply
with. This is the absolute bare minimum that is required,” he said.
Mechanical integrity, process safety
round of bargaining in 2012.
“We can’t leave it up to the companies to protect our members because
they are doing a dismal job of it,” he
said.
If refiners paid greater attention to
safety instead of pushing production
and reinvested more profits into infrastructure, Beevers said there would be
fewer accidents.
“I’m not marching toward 2012
with the intent of having a strike,” he
said. “But I want to get a comprehensive agreement that has enforceable
health and safety language so we have
recourse if something is not safe.”
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
23
I
Students participate in exercise at green
manufacturing specialist training.
n honor of the United Steelworkers, a USW
flag was flown over the Garrison Command
Headquarters of Camp Taji in Iraq by Steelworker William Tyson while he was serving
his country as a member of the Tennessee Army
National Guard.
Sergeant First Class Tyson presented the USW
flag and an American flag that were flown together
over the camp on May 17, 2010 to International
Secretary-Treasurer Stan Johnson, who intends to
display them at USW headquarters in Pittsburgh.
Tyson, 48, is an 11-year member of Local 878L
in Union City, Tenn., which represents production
workers at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in
Union City. His wife Amanda also is a member of
the local and a Women of Steel activist.
Tyson served in Iraq as a member of the Regimental Support Squadron 278th Armored Calvary
Regiment, a regiment of the Tennessee Army
National Guard with headquarters in Knoxville.
While it is common for soldiers to fly the
American flag over camp headquarters, Tyson said
he wanted to do “something special, something
that meant more to me.” He requested the USW
flag from Local 878L President Ricky Waggoner.
Tyson has been home since July 15 and is back
at work at Goodyear.
William Tyson
24
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
T
hanks to federal funding granted to the Institute for Career
Development (ICD), Purdue University’s Technical Assistance
Program is training ArcelorMittal USA employees on sustainable and environmentally friendly workplace practices.
Up to 100 ArcelorMittal employees are expected to take advantage
of the program this fall in Cleveland, Coatesville, Pa., and in Northwest
Indiana.
Those completing the course will be certified by the Purdue program
as a green manufacturing specialist and will also be able to sit for the
Society of Manufacturing Engineers Green Manufacturing Specialist
Certificate exam.
International President Leo W. Gerard said the course will enhance
the skills of highly-trained USW members and keep the union at the
forefront of the movement toward more environmentally-sustainable
practices.
“We all have a stake in increasing energy efficiency and reducing
carbon emissions,” Gerard said.
The five-day program trains participants on ways to reduce manufacturing’s environmental impact and improve competitiveness. Topics
include solid and hazardous waste management, air, water and energy
management and green chemistry.
“This is a really good class,’’ said Local 979 member Carl Mueller,
an electrician in Cleveland. “It’s mostly about sustainability and reducing
energy usage. Trying to eliminate usage is the main thing.”
Applications at the plant level could include eliminating or reducing
the use of certain chemicals and reducing electricity usage through variable speed drives and other means, Mueller said.
“They showed us things that could lead to improved productivity
where your bottom line isn’t hammered so much by energy expenditures,’’ he said. “And when that happens, you can make more profit.”
The training is paid for through a $4.6 million Energy Training Partnership grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to the ICD, which is
based in Merrillville, Ind.
The ICD, created in 1989 to provide educational services to eligible
Steelworkers, partnered with the BlueGreen Alliance to initiate the
Purdue program. The alliance is a labor and environmental partnership
founded in 2006 by the USW and the Sierra Club.
Jerry Evans, executive director of the ICD, said the federal grant allowed the ICD to expand the scope of its customary training. “We view
this training as being right in line with our mission of providing valuable
educational opportunities to the Steelworker membership,” he said.
R
etired International Secretary-Treasurer
Edgar L. Ball, a life-long champion of
working men and women, died on Oct. 12
at the age of 83.
A Texas native who last resided in Lake Charles,
La., Ball served as secretary-treasurer from 1984 to
1994 in the administration of former International
President Lynn R. Williams.
A national debate champion in high school, Ball
had a life-long love of politics that he put to use in
the union’s service. His early career included writing speeches for U.S. Rep. Sam Rayburn.
After serving in World War II in the Army Air
Corps, Ball received degrees from the University of
Texas and the South Texas College of Law. In 1948,
he was hired by the Texas CIO to manage Harry
Truman’s presidential re-election campaign in Harris County.
In 1957, Ball was named the District 37 legislative and political action representative. He served
as a legislative liaison to President Lyndon Johnson
and was instrumental in the passage of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964.
Ball also served as a sub-district director in
Arkansas and as an assistant to then District Director Jim Ward in Houston. He was appointed director after Ward’s death in 1976. He won elections in
1977 and 1981.
The International Executive Board on June 7,
1984 named Ball the union’s international secretary,
replacing Williams, who was named international
president. He retired as secretary-treasurer in 1994.
Ball also served on the Steel Tripartite Advisory
Committee under President Carter and the Steel
Advisory Committee under President Reagan. He
was an executive board member of the AFL-CIO’s
Union Label and Service Trade Department and was
inducted into the Texas AFL-CIO Hall of Fame in
2002.
Edgar L. Ball
VPI Photo
I
n August, United Steelworkers (USW) Local 6500 gathered union
and community activists for a dinner in Sudbury, Ontario to commemorate their work during the previous year’s struggle with
corporate giant Vale.
“The battle for our contract is over, but the war with Vale is not,”
union activist Eric Delparte told the 200 attendees at the dinner at the
Italian Club, which frequently provided meals for those on the picket
line.
The dinner was important for continued unity so that Local 6500
can sustain the fight, said Delparte, worker safety representative at the
Stobie Mine.
After the strike ended, Vale instituted behavior-based safety programs that include disciplinary measures against workers who suffer
injuries on the job. The local is battling that, as well as newly-instituted
punishment for arriving a few minutes late – rather than the previous
practice of verbal warnings.
USW activist Jamie West, co-chair of operations on the health and
safety executive committee, said many of those invited to the dinner
responded by saying they would rather have the cost of their meal
spent on a contribution to the Voisey’s Bay local, which remained on
strike.
Local 6500 announced during the dinner that it and USW International President Leo W. Gerard had matched the cost of the dinner and
would send the money to Voisey’s Bay.
Altogether, $25,000 was sent to Voisey’s Bay. “We will never leave
them behind,” Rick Bertrand, president of the Local 6500, told the
crowd.
Delparte and West recognized the help that Local 6500 received
from the Go Team, SOAR, Building Power members, the community
group formed to support the strikers called CANARIES, the Families
Supporting the Strikers Committee, those who manned the food bank,
politicians who openly backed the cause, the district labor council, the
bargaining team, strike committee and others.
Joining the commemoration was the Grim Reaper – a giant paper
mache effigy of Vale CEO Roger Agnelli that was carried in demonstrations.
Staff Representative Miles Sullivan told the gathering, “With
everyone’s solidarity and commitment and hard work, we were able to
take on a giant.”
Sullivan urged the group, “This fight must go on another five years
so we can keep moving forward. Let’s keep it up!”
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
25
Photo Lynne Baker
having problems proving their illnesses
are a result of exposure to radiation and
other toxic substances.
McIntosh said that in the UK, pay,
rather than the whole contract, is negotiated every year and that the nuclear
employees work under broad terms of a
national agreement.
“They’re far advanced in that they
don’t have to negotiate over everything.
Health care, retiree medical care and
overtime is set by legislation,” said
International Vice President Kip Phillips,
who heads the USW’s atomic sector.
“We’re in the Stone Age when it
comes to labor law. Hopefully we can
address employment issues with employers internationally.”
Training differs
U
SW and Unite members
shared experiences and compared the nuclear industries
where they work as they began developing an international alliance
at an Atomic Energy Workers Council
meeting.
Unite, the largest union in the United
Kingdom and Ireland, is the USW’s partner in the global union Workers Uniting.
“Our alliance is going to become
more important since the marketplace is
going global,’’ said Local 9677 President
Debra Greene, who works at Nuclear
Fuel Services, a subsidiary of Babcock &
Wilcox, in Erwin, Tenn.
The two-day September meeting in
Washington, D.C. included discussions
on training and nuclear site issues, and
visits from Department of Energy (DOE)
officials. Participants lobbied members
of Congress after the sessions ended.
Unite Regional Officer Peter McIntosh and Senior Representative David Alexander discussed their union as well as
the nuclear sector and its challenges. U.S.
delegates asked them about contractors,
the work force, health and safety issues,
26
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
the treatment of sick nuclear workers and
medical surveillance after retirement.
“We have more common issues than
you think,” Alexander said.
Shared contractors
Workers from both unions share a
number of contractors in the nuclear
sector including CH2M Hill, URS Corp.,
Babcock International Group PLC, EnergySolutions and AREVA.
“I think the biggest benefit of our
Workers Uniting alliance is that if one of
our joint employers is pushing a certain
agenda in the UK, we can learn about
it before it is implemented in the U.S.,”
said Local 9477 President Bobby Espinoza, who works at the Waste Isolation
Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, N.M.
“Our Unite brothers and sisters can
learn from us about a bad U.S. employer
that goes over to the UK,” he said.” Such
employers tend to have the same mentality no matter where they go.”
Local 5-689 Vice President Herman Potter from the Portsmouth, Ohio,
nuclear facility asked if the UK, like the
U.S., faces issues relating to an aging
work force.
McIntosh said the problem of an
aging work force will hit the energy and
utility sectors in the UK in the next 10
years. British Energy is looking at demographics and private training programs
and has heavily invested in apprenticeships, he said.
Ailing workers
Local 7-669 Vice President Tim
Goines from the Honeywell plant in Metropolis, Ill., which locked out its union
work force this summer, was intrigued
by how the UK handles ailing nuclear
workers.
“We seem to have a string of cancers
among the people who have worked at
our facility,” he said. “It’s interesting
to hear how they handle that since they
have national health care. At our plant
we have the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program
Act (EEOICPA), but those who worked
from 1976 to the present are not getting
compensation.”
Many sick U.S. nuclear workers seeking compensation from EEOICPA are
Unite trains its own safety representatives, has a national forum and is
active in health and safety committees,
McIntosh said. The USW operates atomic training
programs with DOE grants. The program
is exceeding expectations in the numbers
of classes taught and workers trained,
said Doug Stephens, USW project manager with the DOE grant staff.
A survey of workers at U.S. nuclear
sites showed that some contractors were
behind in training. Training improved at
some locations after the USW contacted
the DOE. Other sites, however, continue
to refuse the union access for training.
When a contractor eliminated Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency
Response training at the Portsmouth facility, Local 5-689 filed an enforcement
complaint with the DOE. That training
will return and more training is expected.
“We’re pretty aggressive in health
and safety,” Potter said. “We’ve had to
stay on top of the regulators. You have to
put them in a situation where they have
to respond.”
USW and Unite representatives in the
sector are sharing e-mail addresses and
exchanging information.
“Our Workers Uniting alliance
benefits everyone,” said Local 652 Vice
President Henry Littleford, who works at
the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho
Falls, Idaho.
“If we can get the communication
lines going between our USW local
unions and our counterparts in Unite, it
increases our opportunity to prepare for
the battles we have to fight.”
T
he 230 members of Local
7-669 in Metropolis, Ill. are
showing the strength of Superman in standing up to the
Honeywell Corp.
Honeywell locked the local’s members out of their jobs at the only uranium conversion facility in the United
States on June 28 as part of a contract
dispute.
Metropolis, located across the Ohio
River from Paducah, Ky., lays claim to
being the official home of Superman. A
15-foot-tall statue of the “Man of Steel,”
with hands on hips, gazes protectively
across the town’s courthouse square.
Despite several negotiating sessions
— recent ones were held on Oct. 11 and
12 — the two sides continue to differ
on contracting out, pension benefits and
seniority rights. Some progress was
apparently made in those sessions over
Superman statue watches over Metropolis
another big issue, healthcare coverage
for employees and retirees.
Radiation monitoring
Local 7-669 members process
uranium yellow cake into uranium
hexafluoride for nuclear fuel. Because
of the danger, they undergo two urine
tests a month for radiation exposure
monitoring.
The work involves dealing with
hazardous materials that can kill. One
of those materials, hydrofluoric acid,
is a highly corrosive chemical that can
penetrate the skin, destroy soft tissues
and decalcify bone.
Local 7-669 Vice President Tim
Goines said the cancer rate at the plant
appears to be very high. Members who
retire from the plant draw on average
only 17 monthly pension checks before
dyng, he said.
The local has erected 42 crosses on a
site near the plant in memory of those
who have died of cancer. Another 27
smaller crosses represent those who
have survived the disease.
Despite the obvious hazards,
Honeywell has operated the plant with
replacement workers who have little
training and no prior experience with
its operation. That scares the union and
the community.
Support from the community and
from labor groups across the country
and internationally has been overwhelming. An August rally drew
thousands of supporters.
“We’re stronger now than
we’ve ever been,” Goines said.
“So if Honeywell is expecting
us to end the fight soon, it
isn’t going to happen.”
Donations to the local’s
strike and defense fund can
be mailed to: USW 7-669, P.O.
Box 601, Metropolis, IL 62960.
For daily updates, check
www.usw7-669.com. Negotiations are tentatively scheduled
to resume on Nov. 22. Meetings
may also be held in December if
necessary.
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
27
Photo by Bill Burke/Page One Photography
T
here were circles under their eyes from
the 12-hour bus ride
that brought them to
Washington, D.C. from New
England, but USW paper
workers left the “One Nation Working Together” rally
with a spring in their step and
smiles on their faces.
“This is great,’’ Dan Lawson, a member of Local 4-261
at the Verso Paper plant in
Buckport, Maine, said as he
boarded a bus for home after
the rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall.
“Tens of thousands of people,
all kinds of people, united, all
agree it is about jobs, jobs,
jobs and we have to fight.”
Tens of thousands of
union members, their allies
in the human and workers’
rights communities on Oct. 2
converged on Washington to
highlight the issues of jobs,
public education, civil rights
and justice.
Steelworker Bernie Hall,
president of amalgamated Local 8183 in Beaver, Pa., was
among a group of “average
workers” tapped to speak as
the rally got underway.
Bring manufacturing back
“I’ve come to march today
because we need to bring
manufacturing jobs back to
America,” Hall told the crowd
as it assembled around the
mall’s reflecting pool. “We
need to rebuild our crumbling
infrastructure, our roads, our
bridges and our schools. We
need to get back to making
things in America!”
Hall got the crowd
warmed up for a speech from
AFL-CIO President Richard
Trumka by asking them to
join him in chanting, “Made
in America! Made in America! Made in America!”
Trumka shared the podium with other labor and
civil rights leaders during the
four-hour event. He marveled
at the diversity of the multiracial crowd, many of whom
wore brightly colored T-shirts
denoting their union or group
affiliation.
“We come together today
because America needs jobs,
good jobs, jobs that support families – all families,’’
Trumka said. “Jobs that give
our young people paths of opportunity, not obstacles. Jobs
that allow people to retire
with dignity.”
Speakers, signs and rally
participants lambasted the
Republican minority in the
Senate for blocking progressive Democratic measures.
“Nothing is getting done
because everyone is in a constant fight,’’ said Steelworker
Keli Vereb, who works for
U.S. Steel in the Pittsburgh
region. “We want our politicians and people in Washington to start working together
and get the promises they
made accomplished.”
Solidarity in a good fight
for jobs and equal opportunity
in a peaceful world persuaded
Henry Ball, 90, of Johnstown,
Pa., and George Edwards,
92, of Pittsburgh, to put on
their walking shoes. Both are
members of the Steelworkers
Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR).
“This is my country,” Edwards said, making reference
to the conservative Glenn
Beck rally that took place at
the Lincoln Memorial five
weeks earlier. “These are the
real patriots.”
Michael West, a laid off
worker from Steubenville,
Ohio, rode to Washington on
a bus with SOAR members
from his region. He is convinced that free trade policies
are killing American jobs.
Keep it Made in America
“Keep it made in America. That is the winning plan.
We need to ship out steel, not
jobs,’’ West said. “We, the
unemployed, have to work
with SOAR and as a group
get the jobs back, the mills
reopened.’’
Patriotism was important
to Steelworker and shipbuilder Charles Slade of Local
8888 at Newport News, Va.
“Unemployment, lay-offs,
the economy is killing our
country,” he said. “We came
because good, union jobs
are the backbone, the heart
and soul of our country. Our
country needs us to get back
on track, get people back to
work and create new jobs.”
For experienced USW
activists like Don Dulovich,
Charles Stokes and Skip
Kerr, members of SOAR
chapter 15-7 in Clairton, Pa.,
a highlight of the rally was
the large numbers of young
people in attendance.
“There is all the talk of
hope, but I really see it in all
the young people, the young
families, here today,” Stokes
said. “They get it.”
Bernie Hall
28
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
29
Going forward or backward?
The contrast in the political renewal plans issued this fall is as clear as that between blue, for
the Democrats’ “Make It in America” and red,
for the Republicans’ “Pledge to America.”
The GOP promised to take America back to
the past, to those Bush days of falsely-premised
war and gut-wrenching recession. Democrats, by
contrast, pledged to rebuild American manufacturing to ensure the nation’s security and create
good-paying, family-supporting jobs.
To announce their “Pledge,” GOP leaders
went to a small business in Sterling, Va., no more
than 25 miles east of Washington, D.C., a place
not really outside the beltway, not in Middle
America, not in the states Republicans derisively
refer to as the “Rust Belt.”
There in Sterling, Republicans promised to
reverse every gain working Americans made
since Barack Obama was elected president – repeal health insurance reform, reverse Wall Street
reform, stop stimulus spending to create jobs, all
the while sustaining tax breaks for the rich.
Their actions that day illustrate the depth
of GOP insincerity. Republicans swore they
would help small businesses, then returned to
the Capitol and voted against a bill to help small
businesses.
Democrats managed to pass the Small Business Jobs Act anyway, providing eight new tax
cuts for small firms, improving federal loans for
them and strengthening innovative state small
business programs.
Supporting small business jobs
President Obama explained as he signed the
bill, “Now this is important because small businesses produce most of the new jobs in this country. They are the anchors of our Main Streets.
They are part of the promise of America.”
The Democratic “Make It in America” plan is
about new jobs in an economy where 8.2 million workers have lost theirs since 2007, where
unemployment is stuck at 9.5 percent. It is about
rejuvenating the heartland by supporting American manufacturing, not threatening the recovery
by unleashing Wall Street gamblers.
The plan was inspired by a poll conducted
by the Alliance for American Manufacturing
last spring. The survey of 1,000 likely voters
found that Democrats, Republicans and Independents all named as their top concerns the loss of
American manufacturing jobs and the failure of
Congress to respond. They were more worried
about losing manufacturing jobs than the national
debt, illegal immigration, the wars and terrorism.
Those surveyed, across all demographic
groups including union and non-union households and Tea Party supporters, overwhelmingly
supported pro-manufacturing policies and said
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U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
they believed the U.S. could regain its position as
world’s strongest economy if those policies were
implemented.
Democrats responded to these results: 86
percent told the AAM pollsters that they wanted
Washington to focus on manufacturing, and majorities believed the federal government should
do that by enforcing trade laws, promoting clean
energy, providing tax credits for U.S. manufacturing, and replacing aging infrastructure with
American materials.
Progress stalled in Senate
The Democrats decided they would try to accomplish those goals with a series of bills resolving specific problems. House Democrats passed
several of these before Congress recessed for
the mid-term elections, but most got stuck in the
Senate where Republicans gained the moniker
“Party of No” by blocking virtually all legislation with the filibuster procedure that requires 60
votes instead of a majority of 51.
The House passed bills to ease American industries’ access to raw materials and parts and to
improve specialized work force training. And the
House passed a bill long supported by the USW
to require the president to develop a national
manufacturing strategy and evaluate progress
every four years.
Just before recessing, the House passed
another bill in its Make It in America plan that
is crucial to the USW. It is the Currency Reform for Trade Act, which would allow the U.S.
Commerce Department to impose sanctions on
goods imported from countries that devalue their
currencies. China, for example, manipulates its
currency, in effect providing a discount on products it exports to the U.S. while creating a “tax”
on U.S. products sold in China, making them
artificially overpriced.
China had promised in June that it would
allow the value of its currency to float up against
the dollar, which would begin eliminating this
subsidy. But by the time the House passed the
Currency Reform Act in September, China had
allowed the currency value to increase by only
about 2 percent. Even conservative economists
believe it to be undervalued between 25 and 40
percent.
Unlike 99 percent of other bills passed in the
House during the Obama administration, this one
received Republican support. The vote was 348
to 79, with more than 100 Republicans voting
in favor, which suggests this piece of Make It in
America may pass the Senate when Congress
returns after the mid-term elections.
On this one issue, maybe the Reds and the
Blues can get together before American manufacturing and American manufacturing workers
must raise white flags of defeat.
S
teelworkers once employed at a
defunct chemical plant in Baltimore will get first chance at jobs
to be created by the construction
of a $1 billion renewable energy power
plant on the same site.
Energy Answers International of
Albany, N.Y., hopes to begin building the power plant this December on
a brownfield location owned by FMC
Corp., which manufactured agricultural
chemicals there and is responsible for
site remediation.
“These are the types of projects
which validate our belief that we can
be a leader in renewable energy,’’
said International Vice President Fred
Redmond, who attended a “kickoff”
ceremony with Maryland Gov. Martin
O’Malley and other dignitaries. “The
green economy can serve as a mechanism not only for a clean environment
but to put people back to work.”
If construction starts as planned in
December, the Fairfield Renewable
Energy Power Plant could be up and
running by the fourth quarter of 2013,
its developers contend. It is expected to
employ 1,300 union craftsmen during
construction and more than 180 operators once it is completed.
Jim Strong, a Sub-District Director
for District 8, negotiated a letter of intent
that gives the USW the right to conduct
an organizing drive without management
interference.
Former FMC employees would get
first priority for employment, Strong
said. Members of the local community
will also be given hiring consideration.
“We think the project is going to go,’’
said Strong, who was involved in the
discussions at an early stage. “They’re
saying it will create 180 to 200 permanent jobs. The bulk of them will be
union jobs.”
The power plant will take up about
15 of the 90 available acres at the site.
Energy Answers said after completing
the power plant, it intends to develop an
industrial park there that would include
“compatible industries” such as concrete
products manufacturing, recycled paper
milling, bio-fuels production, climate
controlled warehousing or research
laboratories.
“There’s a lot of future potential
for us with the right companies,” said
Strong, who noted that the $1 billion
investment will be supported by $340
million in federal stimulus funds.
Energy Answers President and CEO
Patrick Mahoney said the company is
negotiating power contracts with utilities, the city of Baltimore and the state
of Maryland. It hopes to have them in
place by the end of the year.
The plant will burn fuel processed
from municipal waste, about 4,000 tons
a day, or the annual equivalent of 115
acres of landfill piled l5 feet high. It can
also burn fuel made from wood waste,
auto shredder residue and chipped tires.
Leftover ash can be used in concrete
products.
“This project is more than sustainable,’’ Mahoney said. “We’re taking a
site that otherwise wouldn’t be used,
would be fenced in, and we’re putting it
to good use.”
At the kickoff ceremony held in
October, city, state and federal officials
lauded the project as an example of the
high-tech innovation needed to grow
Maryland’s economy.
Robert Perciasepe, a deputy administrator with the Environmental Protection
Agency, called the development a “green
and appropriate” reuse project.
“This is a really simple and important formula,’’ he said. “We get toxic
pollution out and we bring jobs and opportunities back in.”
Illustration provided by Energy Answers International
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
31
B
uilding on the momentum
established during the 2006
and 2008 elections, USW activists were once again in the
forefront of efforts to support candidates
who advocate a workers’ agenda.
But this was the first election since
the U.S. Supreme Court decided to overturn a 100-year-old precedent and allow
corporations to contribute unlimited
funds to campaigns.
Critics of that decision noted that the
massive spending from undisclosed donors lived up to their worst predictions.
Untold millions of corporate dollars
were spent without shareholder approval
on lies and half-truths stoking fear and
attacking candidates who support working families. Even money raised from foreign firms by the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce may have snaked its ways into the political process.
USW activists were committed to the challenges faced in
2010. Their on-the-ground work for candidates at all levels was
unmatched in the labor movement.
“The level of activism we saw amongst USW members heading into the election was second to none,” said Political Director Tim Waters. “There are still no other unions that can make
things happen on the street like our members. It is the only way
to try and compete with the amount of corporate and foreign
capital that has been thrown into the process at every level.”
Some 1,200 worksite coordinators in USW locals and bargaining units along with hundreds more volunteers distributed
leaflets at worksites and plant gates. Members passed out more than 1 million pieces
of literature in targeted states and districts
across the country.
In key races where the USW has a
strong presence, organized block walks
were held with a goal of reaching members
at their front doors at least twice with a
message from the union before Election
Day.
Using internal polling and membership
density data, the USW developed targeted
programs that provided maximum impact
in areas where members have the power to
swing close races in the direction of proworker candidates. Phone banking resulted
in thousands of member-to-member calls.
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana were recognized as “top tier” states in which
large, organized USW initiatives mobilized members.
Every vote counts in a close election year, so the USW led
the charge in 12 additional battleground states, and worked to
turn out members in every district where the union could make a
difference.
This election has taught an important lesson. As in the past,
the union had plenty of foot soldiers. But this time was different. Big corporations spent tens of millions against pro-worker
candidates.
That massive corporate spending clearly illustrated how crucial it is for each member to financially support the USW Political Action Committee (PAC). It won’t level the playing field but
it will keep the USW in the game. The future depends on it.
Pre-election activities from around the union.
PAC Support a Matter of Survival
R
od Nelson, president of USW Local 207L at the Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. plant in Findlay,
Ohio, knows how important it is for working families to have a voice in politics and government. That’s why he supports the USW Political Action Committee (PAC).
“I’m very lucky to be surrounded by a group of caring, dedicated people at Local 207L who understand that policy decisions made in Washington, D.C. can have a major impact on the shop floor,”
he said.
“Supporting the USW PAC isn’t a matter of choice for many of our brothers and sisters across the
country, it’s a matter of survival.”
PACs and the funds they raise play a key role in the USW’s ongoing activities on behalf of working people and their families, said PAC Coordinator Michael Scarver. Contributions are voluntary
and are used to support labor-friendly candidates and initiatives.
With the tire industry in turmoil from an influx of subsidized tires from China, the Obama administration a year ago enacted Section 421 trade tariffs
on certain passenger car and light truck tires. Since
Rod Nelson (right) and Sherrod Brown
then, the Findlay plant has hired at least 100 new
workers.
Nelson credits Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)
for leading the fight for fair trade on behalf of
workers in Findlay and across the country.
“The senator never stops fighting for us, so the
least we can do is support him and candidates like
him,” Nelson said. “Our strength has always been
in our numbers. So it’s up to us to spread the word
not just in the plant but out in our communities as
well.”
Showing Solidarity at Medco
T
he USW’s Medco Council, which represents 5,000 members at Medco Health Solutions
locations around the country, is showing true solidarity in the midst of serious negotiations with the pharmaceutical mail-order giant.
The council members, who meet several times a year to share information and strategies, have
pledged solidarity and support to each other during individual contract negotiations.
The USW has 13 contracts at Medco locations in seven states including Florida, New Jersey, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington. At press time, contracts were open for negotiation
in Tampa, Fla., Parsippany, N.J., and North Versailles, Pa.
With 5,000 members, Medco is the largest USW employer in the pharmaceutical industry. Overall, the USW represents about 15,000 members in many segments of the industry including retail
pharmacies and manufacturers such as Pfizer, Merck, Bayer and Mylan Labs.
USW Condemns Mass Firing
T
he USW condemned Grupo Mexico
SAB, Mexico’s largest mining company,
for a mass firing of workers at its copper
smelter in Esqueda, Sonora after the miners
rejected a company-imposed union.
The mass firing was enforced by 1,000
heavily armed federal police. It occurred after
the miners voted Aug. 20 to reject a Grupo
Mexico sponsored union in order to rejoin
the independently chartered National Union
of Mine, Metal and Steelworkers of the
Mexican Republic, known as Los Mineros.
International President Leo W.
Gerard called the firing a blatant act of repression. “Instead of deploying the police to
protect its citizens from the drug cartels, the
Mexican government is using them to bust
democratic unions run by the workers and
not the company,” he said.
32
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
Unions Improve Happiness
P
eople who live in countries with a high density of union membership are happier than
those who do not.
So says Benjamin Radcliff, a professor at
Notre Dame and the co-author of a study about
unions in 14 nations.
His study crunched life-satisfaction data from
several European countries, as well as Japan,
Australia and the United States.
Radcliff said he found “a causal relationship”
between happiness and the density of unions.
“People who have union jobs like their jobs better,” he told reporters. “And that puts pressure on
other employers to extend the same benefits and
wages to compete with the union shops.”
Denmark ranks near the top in both categories
while the United States, by contrast, ranks in the
bottom third for happiness among the countries
studied.
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
33
School Donations
New Mexico Mine Reopening
F
reeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. has announced plans to restart
operations at the Chino Mine in Hurley, N.M, where many USW members
have recall rights.
The company suspended mining operations at Chino at the start of 2009
because of depressed copper prices, cutting more than 600 jobs. The resumed
operations are expected to employ 570, according to the company.
“We welcome the decision by
Freeport-McMorRan Copper and
Chino Mine
Gold to reopen the Chino Mine,”
said District 12 Director Robert
LaVenture. “Our members are looking forward to getting back to work
after a very long period of lay off.”
The open pit mining operation
in southwestern New Mexico began
in 1910. It was the site of the controversial 1954 movie, Salt of the
Earth, based on a long hard mining
strike. The mine became part of
Freeport-McMoRan in 2007.
Gerard Honored as Green Power Hero
A
conservation group, Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (Penn Future), honored International President Leo W. Gerard
as a Green Power Hero at its annual awards
event this year.
PennFuture awards recognize individuals
and organizations for their work in promoting the clean energy economy in Pennsylvania. Gerard was specifically honored for
his leadership in creating the BlueGreen
Alliance and the Apollo Alliance.
The BlueGreen Alliance is a national
strategic partnership between labor unions
and environmental organizations dedicated
to expanding the number and quality of jobs
in the green energy economy. The Apollo
Alliance is a coalition of labor, business,
environmental and community leaders that
promotes development of a clean energy
economy.
Position available: USW Communications Department – Member Internship
T
he United Steelworkers is searching its ranks for a smart, organized, energetic person with strong research, writing and
internet skills to assist our communications department in the Pittsburgh headquarters.
This internship offers an excellent opportunity for a talented member committed to the labor movement and social
equity issues to gain experience working in our high caliber, fast paced, results-oriented headquarters. This position is open to
everyone who has been a dues-paying member for a minimum of two years.
Internship responsibilities will include the following:
• Writing blog posts, letters to the editor and articles about the USW’s activities
• Updating the USW website
• Assisting rank and file members with local communications
• Supporting organizing campaigns and contract bargaining
• Some photography and video production
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Persuasive, organized, creative thinker
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment and meet deadlines
• Ability to be flexible, positive, take initiative, and demonstrate good judgment
• Ability to maintain confidentiality and follow through on tasks and projects
Education and Experience
• Some college education is strongly preferred
• Some journalism or communications experience preferred
• Desktop publishing and some HTML knowledge would be helpful but HTML experience is not required
• Experience with/interest in social media
• Experience with collective bargaining, grievance procedure and local union procedures is highly desirable, though not required
• A good knowledge of the USW’s history is helpful
How to apply
This position is expected to last six months, beginning on March 1, 2011
Interns will be paid lost time wages capped at 40 hours per week, plus room and board and per diem.
Please submit a resume, cover letter and three samples of your most recent work. In your cover letter, describe your interest in
supporting the USW’s mission and why you are qualified for this internship. Only complete applications will be considered.Send
applications to: Wayne Ranick, USW Communications Director, 5 Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15222 ([email protected]).
34
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
T
he USW’s Civil and Human
Rights department partnered with
Steelers backup quarterback Charlie
Batch and the National Council of
Charlie Batch
Jewish women to provide book bags
and supplies to students from his
hometown of Homestead, Pa.
In Aliquippa, Pa., another former
mill town, former Steeler and TV
sports analyst Edmund Nelson joined USW activists and other community
leaders in distributing free USW back packs filled with paper, pencils, crayons
and other supplies to elementary school students.
Support the United Way
I
nternational President Leo W. Gerard is asking USW members and local
unions to support the 2010 United Way Campaign.
The USW is a longstanding partner with the United Way and shares its
objectives of helping working families every day with access to vital resources
and services, Gerard said in a letter to USW members.
Millions of Americans are struggling with unemployment and many hardworking people are going to local food pantries for the first time in their lives.
Gerard said these families must be helped directly in the communities where
they live.
“Our primary community partner in this vital daily work is the United Way.
Through this partnership, we do make a difference. We continue to help those
who are lacking basic necessities, as well as working on long-term solutions
that address the real causes of our nation’s social service needs,” he said.
“The work of the local United Ways deserves the support of union brothers
and sisters in their communities. Please join me in supporting the 2010 United
Way campaign – together we can help those in real need now, while we work
to turn America around.”
Car Wash Owners Jailed
T
he two-year-old USW-backed campaign to organize 10,000 car wash
workers in Los Angeles has made some important strides.
Notably, two owners of four car washes that illegally underpaid and mistreated employees were sentenced to one year behind bars and ordered to pay
$1.25 million in back wages.
Brothers Benny and Nissan Pirian also received four years of probation after pleading no contest to six criminal counts including grand theft, conspiracy
and labor code violations.
The CLEAN Carwash Campaign helped to persuade officials to investigate the Pirians’ operations and last year the Los Angeles city attorney’s
office charged them with a few hundred misdemeanors that could have meant
decades in jail.
On the Line at American Steamship’s Liberty Line
A
bout 100 members of Great Lakes Seamen/USW Local 5000, which
represents the crews of many shipping companies throughout the Great
Lakes region, on Sept. 18 marked one year on strike against the Liberty Division of the American SteamLocal 5000 members.
ship Line.
American Steamship
refuses to bargain in good
faith for a pattern agreement
similar to the one Local 5000
has with its competitors. So
far, management won’t budge
from its demand for substantial concessions.
Building Power at Smurfit Stone
T
he National Labor Relations Board has certified a USW organizing election victory at
a Smurfit Stone Container Corp. (SSCC) paper
mill in Stevenson, Ala.
About 300 hourly employees at the paper mill
voted 173 to 97 to be represented by the USW.
District 9 Director Dan Flippo called the election
historic.
“This campaign was won the old-fashioned
way with hard work, a positive message and a
belief that the union and the solidarity of the
union will make workers’ lives better,” Flippo
said.
International Vice President Jon Geenen,
who leads the union’s paper sector bargaining,
praised the work of rank-and-file organizers
who helped in the campaign and said he looks
forward to working the newly organized mill into
the union’s National Paper Bargaining Program
and the union’s SSCC Council, which represents
thousands of SSCC employees in North America.
BP Hit with $15 Million Fine
B
P PLC has been fined $15 million by the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
and the Department of Justice for Clean Air Act
violations at its Texas City refinery.
The fine, issued on Sept. 30, resulted from
a settlement between the EPA and BP and is subject to court approval. It is the largest civil Clean
Air Act penalty given to a U.S. facility.
BP’s Texas City refinery was earlier fined
$87 million by the U.S. Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) for violations
related to the March 2005 explosion that killed
15 people and injured about 170 others.
USW Endorses Labor Violations Report
A
report released by Human Rights Watch
shows how many European companies
publicly embrace workers’ rights under global
labor standards while, at the same time, they
undermine the rights of their employees in U.S.
operations.
The USW has endorsed the 130-page report,
entitled, A Strange Case: Violations of Workers’
Freedom of Association in the United States by
European Multinational Corporations.
It details ways in which some European
multinational firms have carried out aggressive
campaigns to keep workers in the United States
from organizing and bargaining, violating international standards and, often, U.S. labor laws.
The Human Rights Watch report is based on
30 interviews with workers, testimony in legal
proceedings, findings and decisions of U.S. labor
law authorities, company documents, and written exchanges with company management.
U S W @ Wo r k • F a l l 2 0 1 0
35
Have You Moved?
Notify your local union financial secretary, or clip out this form
with your old address label and send your new address to:
USW@Work
USW Membership Department,
3340 Perimeter Hill Drive, Nashville, TN 37211
Name ______________________________________
New Address ________________________________
City ________________________________________
State _________________________ Zip _________
Leeann Anderson, Assistant to
International President
Photo by Steve Dietz
Go inside USW@Work for stories on the 2010 Health Safety and Environment
Conference, the USW International Women’s Conference and industry conferences
for USW members in Paper, Oil bargaining and Atomic Energy.