pdf - United Steelworkers

Transcription

INSIDEUSW@WORK
“
Nobody gave us a shot. The USW did the impossible.
We literally did the impossible.
”
Jim Savage
President, Local 10-1
at Sunoco’s Philadelphia refinery
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
(Human Affairs)
08
GORILLA GLASS
STEEL TALKS
Gorilla Glass, the strong, thin, scratch-resistant
material used in smartphone screens, is produced
by members of Local 1016 at Corning Display
Technologies in Harrodsburg, Ky.
The USW is negotiating with U.S. Steel and
ArcelorMittal USA over contracts that cover
nearly 30,000 production, maintenance, office
and technical workers in North America.
Ken Neumann
Nat’l. Dir. for Canada
Jon Geenen
Gary Beevers
Carol Landry
Vice President at Large
DIRECTORS
David R. McCall, District 1
Michael Bolton, District 2
Stephen Hunt, District 3
09
12
BRING HOME JOBS ACT
REFINERIES SAVED
USW members are building support for a bill
that would end tax breaks for companies that
move jobs overseas and instead provide incentives to bring jobs back to the United States.
F E AT U R E S
Speaking Out
CAPITOL letters
News Bytes
USW members helped save two Pennsylvania
refineries from closure – one in Philadelphia
and the other in nearby Trainer, Pa.
ON THE COVER
03
28
33
The Sunoco refinery in Philadelphia. AP Photo
John Shinn, District 4
Daniel Roy, District 5
Wayne Fraser, District 6
Jim Robinson, District 7
Volume 07/No.3 Summer 2012
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 O M M U N I C AT I O N S S TA F F :
Jim McKay, Editor
Wayne Ranick, Director of Communications
Gary Hubbard, Director of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.
Aaron Hudson and Kenny Carlisle, Designers
Deb Davidek, Chelsey Engel, Lynne Hancock, R.J. Hufnagel,
Jess Kamm, Tony Montana, Barbara White Stack
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
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 2012 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 • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
Time to Increase Pensions
The Steelworkers retirees have done everything possible during their working careers to
put U.S. Steel in a position to succeed.
Retirees from the early 1980s have only seen
one increase of $50 in their pensions. And 30
years ago, our pensions were in line with “market standards” as I recall.
According to the 2012 stockholder statement, the U.S. Steel board of directors will see
an increase in their compensation of $20,000
(from $180,000 to $200,000) in addition to their
expenses, fees and stock options.
After 30 years, I think an increase in our pensions is justifiable to bring our pensions back to
market standards.
Union-Made Cars
I saved the Spring 2011 issue of USW@
Work because of the article “Buy a Union-Made
Vehicle.”
After driving the same car for 18 years, I
decided to trade it in for a new vehicle. I used
the list of union-made vehicles to shop around
for what I wanted. I finally decided on a 2012
Ford Escape. I traded in my 1994 Ford Escort,
another union-made car that gave me great
service.
Thanks for the vehicle information.
John Huseman,
Local 286, Lincoln, Neb.
Lillian Johnson, Retired
Local 1028, Duluth, Minn.
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 • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
3
Corning Photo
4
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
S
urrounded by the rolling hills and horse
farms of central Kentucky, the Corning Display Technologies plant in the tiny town of
Harrodsburg seems at first to be an unlikely
stage for a renaissance in American innovation and
manufacturing.
But inside the sprawling facility, USW members are busy creating
a type of glass that has
quickly become as commonplace as the steel on
which their union was
founded.
The Corning plant,
home to Local 1016, is
the birthplace of “Gorilla
Glass,” a strong, thin,
scratch-resistant material
used in screens for smartphones, tablet computers
and similar hand-held
devices. Five years into
production, the glass is
now found in more than
750 product models all
over the world.
“The business continues to grow,” said Theresa
Coffman, a USW member
and 12-year employee.
“And as it continues to
grow, it has created jobs
for our community.”
A new market
The Gorilla Glass
story began in 2006 when
Apple CEO Steve Jobs
saw scratches on the
screen of an iPhone prototype he’d been carrying in
his pocket with his keys.
The late technology
pioneer decided that he
needed to find a tough, scratch-resistant glass for the
new gadget, which would be unveiled the following
year. Corning had experimented with similar products in the 1960s, but never found much of a market
for them. Apple’s new phone, and dozens of others
like it, provided one in a big way.
The smartphone boom that exploded in 2007 not
only led to the overhaul of Corning’s 60-year-old
Kentucky plant, it also provided new jobs for USW
members in the depths of
a recession.
If not for Gorilla
Glass, Coffman said, it’s
unclear what might have
become of the factory, the
workers or the town of
Harrodsburg, Kentucky’s
oldest city.
“For a community this
small, it would have been
devastating” to weather
the downturn without the
new business, she said.
Rather than losing
jobs, the plant has added
about 80 positions over
the past two years and
now employs more than
300, including 230 USW
members. In 2010, Corning began a nearly $200
million modernization that
continues today.
“Gorilla Glass carried
us through,” plant manager Casey Duffy said.
“Otherwise, we would
have had virtually no
work to do.”
History of innovation
This is not the first
time the Corning facility,
which will celebrate its
60th anniversary this fall,
has undergone a transformation. In its early days,
the plant produced glass
for cameras, binoculars,
eyeglasses and other devices.
When that business began to lose ground to
plastics, it was time to retool. In the early 1980s, the
plant became a leader in the development of
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
5
David Ballard
Photo by Pablo Alcala
liquid crystal display (LCD) glass, and Corning
workers in Harrodsburg soon set the standard for a
product that would become a major component in the
production of television sets and computer monitors.
Today, the plant plays a dual role as glass factory
and technology center, where workers spend much
of their time developing and perfecting new products
and procedures, and then exporting those ideas to
sister plants overseas that handle more large-scale
production.
That has meant a transition for USW members
from jobs based on manual labor to those where they
are more likely to be sitting in front of computer
screens.
Coffman said the modernization has improved
safety and enhanced the quality of life for workers
at the facility. “Everyone here has embraced these
changes,” she said.
Once workers understood that the changes would
eventually bring more jobs rather than cuts, they accepted them and adapted to their new roles, said Local 1016 President Jason Alexander, who has worked
at the plant since 1999.
That ability to adapt to new technology has allowed USW members in Kentucky to thrive in an
industry that is primarily based overseas, Alexander
said.
Facing challenges
The process for making Gorilla Glass is similar to
traditional glass production, except that Gorilla Glass
6
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
is treated in a chemical ion-exchange process to create a surface that is ultra-durable but still sensitive
enough for use as a touch screen.
Aside from Harrodsburg, Corning has similar
plants in Korea, Taiwan, Japan and China. The goal
in locating the plants there, Duffy said, is to place
production facilities as close as possible to the customers who use the glass in their products.
No matter where the final products are made,
though, the process begins in the heads and hands of
USW members in Kentucky.
“If these workers had not been willing to adapt, I
am not sure what the future would have been here,”
Duffy said. “I couldn’t tell you another facility that
has faced the kinds of challenges the workers have
faced here and responded this way.”
The result has been a better workplace: for four of
the past five years, the plant has made the list of Best
Places to Work in Kentucky, a ranking that is determined in large part by the results of worker surveys.
A bright future
Today, of course, Gorilla Glass is everywhere,
but it is just one piece of what Corning believes is a
bright future for thinner, stronger glass products that
can be used in a wide variety of industries.
The company sees its photovoltaic (PV) glass,
which can improve the efficiency and durability of
solar panels, as a key component to the expanding
solar power industry. The recent expansion at the
Harrodsburg plant was intended, in part, to support
Leon Reed
Corning Photo
Local Vice President Mark Curtsinger
Local President Jason Alexander
Katrina Alexander and
Theresa Coffman
continued PV glass development.
And in June, Corning unveiled another cuttingedge product developed at the Kentucky plant, the
ultra-thin “Willow Glass” that can be stored and
transported in large spools, similar to paper rolls.
The reduction in size and weight could cut costs by
50 percent, Duffy said.
A family affair
Whether talking to customers sitting down to
lunch at Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken, or at a nearby laundry, or in line at the local Main Source Bank,
it’s hard to find someone in Harrodsburg who does
not have a personal connection to the Corning plant.
Sometimes it’s a neighbor, sometimes a cousin or a
friend – often, it’s all three.
USW member Katrina Alexander, wife of Jason
Alexander, also works for Corning, preparing documents to help other employees learn new procedures
and work roles. Her 18-year-old son also recently
landed a summer internship at the plant.
“This place is a very important part of our community,” she said. “Everyone is connected.”
That’s particularly true for the family of Mark
Curtsinger, vice president of Local 1016 and a 12year employee.
Curtsinger’s parents met as workers at the plant,
and his father worked there for nearly 40 years.
Now, he and his brother both carry on the family
tradition. “This place has meant everything to us,”
he said.
Curtsinger, who once spent his workdays manually trimming the excess glass from the edges of
large sheets, now fills the role of trouble shooter,
monitoring the glass-making process to make sure it
runs smoothly.
He is one of scores of workers in Harrodsburg
for whom the transition away from manual labor has
meant learning new skills and getting used to a new
workplace culture.
“We have embraced these changes,” he said.
“We look at them as new opportunities.”
Curtsinger said he and his fellow employees take
pride in their role in making a product that millions of people around
the world carry in their pockets,
even if they might not know it.
“It makes you feel good to
know that you had a hand in
something like this.”
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
7
T
he USW is negotiating with U.S. Steel and ArcelorMittal USA over contracts that expire Sept. 1, 2012 and
cover nearly 30,000 production, maintenance, office
and technical workers throughout North America.
Talks with both companies began earlier this summer in
Pittsburgh. Since then, USW committees have been identifying plant-specific issues and addressing those items with local
management, reporting some progress.
With the July 4 holiday behind us, master contract negotiations resuming and temperatures climbing, bargaining committees expect to see initial economic proposals from both companies in the weeks ahead.
It is clear this round of bargaining will be different from
that in the summer of 2008, which occurred prior to the global
economic collapse. The challenge is expanding on the achievements of the 2008 agreements while improving job security and
building a more stable future for USW members and retirees in
basic steel.
A
ngel Alvarez kept fellow members of
USW Local 1011 close to his heart as he
carried the Olympic flame for a part of
its long journey across Great Britain to
the 2012 Summer Games.
The signatures and good wishes of co-workers at ArcelorMittal’s plant in East Chicago,
Ind., covered a T-shirt that Alvarez, 38, wore
under his official Olympic track suit on
June 30 as he carried the flame through the
town of Higher Broughton on a leg of the
route between Manchester and the
resort community of Lytham St.
Anne’s.
The idea for the shirt, said
Local 1011 President Lonnie Asher, was
Alvarez’s. “He said, ‘I want to take some
part of my family with me.’ He calls us his
family.”
Alvarez was one of 8,000 people who
were chosen to help carry the flame on
8
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
Before negotiations even started, ArcelorMittal decided to
“market” its bargaining strategy to USW members regarding the
conditions integrated steel producers must deal with in today’s
economy.
The company may have forgotten that the innovative contract the USW negotiated with ISG in 2002 made possible the
resurgence of the industry and record profits in recent years.
The current contract’s flexibility and the productivity of USW
members are what allowed the industry to survive the global
economic crisis.
While ArcelorMittal management essentially broadcast its
intent to seek major economic and other changes to the contract,
U.S. Steel’s approach to negotiations has so far been quieter by
comparison, although quieter doesn’t necessarily mean easier.
Negotiating a fair contract with either company will not be easy.
Since negotiating the first industry contracts in the 1930s and
1940s, the USW has turned jobs that were once looked upon
with scorn into family-supporting careers that form the backbone
of the middle class in many communities.
Through solidarity and determination to respect the past
while building a more secure future, USW members have made
the steel industry in North America a world leader in safety,
quality, efficiency and environmental responsibility.
Standing together, working hard and staying strong have
carried the USW through difficult times in the past. With the
solidarity of the membership, union negotiators remain confident
of reaching new agreements that will recognize the importance
of labor and reward USW members with opportunities to share
in the successes their work helped create for their employers.
its 8,000 mile, 70-day journey from Greece to Britain in time for
the Olympic opening ceremony on July 27.
Most of the 8,000 were chosen because they are an inspiration to someone. Alvarez was nominated by his co-workers because he gave the life-saving gift of a kidney to Daniel Kniefel,
a union brother and co-worker he barely knew.
“After the surgery, my co-worker told me he owed me his
life. I told him that he didn’t owe me anything,” Alvarez said.
“The only thing I asked is that anytime anyone is in need of help
and if he can lend a hand, that he not hesitate to help.”
Jaime Quiroz, the union griever in Alvarez’s work area,
submitted his name when he heard ArcelorMittal was accepting
nominations. Alvarez was one of four employees from around
the world who were selected to participate.
“It took a day or two to believe that it really happened. I
thought my co-workers were playing a joke on me,” said Alvarez, who is a known jokester himself.
Alvarez ran about a quarter of a mile on June 23. As the bus
that delivered the relay members to their starting posts emptied,
Alvarez said he began to get a little nervous, but the energy of
the crowd was exhilarating.
“It was a great experience,” he said.
Alvarez’s co-workers said he did not seek recognition for his
selfless act.
“He didn’t do any of this for the accolades or the publicity,”
Asher said. “I don’t know that I could have dreamt up a better
ambassador for Local 1011 than Angel.”
Carolynn Masten, Dave Evans, Tim Duffy,
Bob Mueler and Dave Thurston
Photo by Steve Dietz
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
9
L
ed by USW members, union
and community activists across
the country spent the July 4
holiday week building support
for a bill that would end tax breaks for
companies that move jobs overseas and
instead provide incentives to bring jobs
back to the United States.
On its face, the Bring Jobs Home Act
is a simple effort to increase employment
and grow the U.S. economy. But in an
election year, when Republicans in Congress try to sabotage President Barack
Obama’s every effort to fight unemployment, nothing is as simple as it seems.
Whether it passes or not, though, the
Bring Jobs Home Act has drawn a clear
line between those who want to restore
manufacturing in this country and those
who want to continue moving it overseas.
“We’re finally going to have an
honest, full discussion of the forces that
have been hollowing out America’s
middle class for a generation,” AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka said.
“Those forces aren’t foreign, they are
domestic. Those forces aren’t working
people, unions, immigrants, or other
popular scapegoats, they are vulture
capitalists, Wall Street, and CEOs who
put their own pay ahead of their company or worker’s well-being.”
fathers” of offshoring and outsourcing
American jobs, Gerard said.
“That’s not what middle-class families across this country are looking for
in a president,” he said. “They want to
know that their president is looking out
for them and that his primary concern is
to create jobs here at home.”
Among the events held to promote
Too many U.S. corporations have
sacrificed good American jobs for the
sake of bigger dividends for Wall Street
and bonuses for CEOs, said International
President Leo W. Gerard.
That blueprint for boosting profits
by killing U.S. jobs was drawn up decades ago by Romney, a former venture
capitalist who was one of the “founding
the bill was a joint news conference with
USW leaders, politicians and managers
at the Xylem Inc. plant in Cheektowaga,
N.Y. Union and management have
worked together there to move jobs from
Mexico back to the Buffalo-area factory that manufactures heat-exchange
products.
With one out of four U.S. jobs
Dan Mangold
10
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
vulnerable to offshoring, the Bring Jobs
Home Act is an essential tool to battle
unemployment, said U.S. Rep Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), whose district includes the
plant.
“This nation can and must do a better
job of keeping quality jobs right here
where they belong,” Higgins said.
Team approach can work
USW District 4 Director John Shinn
said the revitalized factory is just one example of how a team approach can help
rebuild American manufacturing.
“Through a strong partnership between labor and management at Xylem,
we were successful in bringing work
back to the United States. Efforts like
this, to keep and create jobs here at
home, are good for working families and
help increase the companies’ reputation
and sales.”
USW members from Louisiana to
California to Wisconsin to New Hamp-
shire marched in parades, met with
lawmakers, held rallies and passed out
literature at community events, all to
draw public attention to the Bring Jobs
Home effort.
In Bangor, Maine, activists gathered
outside the offices of two moderate
Republican senators, Susan Collins and
Olympia Snowe, to urge them to support
the bill. In addition, members held “thank
you” rallies for legislators who have
already pledged their support, including
Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a co-sponsor of the bill.
President Obama trumpeted the legislation on a campaign swing through Ohio
and Pennsylvania, and has touted the bill
in an ad criticizing Romney’s record on
offshoring while he ran Bain Capital.
As USW@Work went to press, the
future of the Bring Jobs Home Act was
unclear. The president and Democrats
in both the House and the Senate have
pushed for passage. However, Senate
Republicans were expected to try to
block efforts to bring the bill to the floor,
and its fate was even more uncertain in
the GOP-controlled House.
With unemployment hovering around
8 percent, efforts to grow employment
should be welcomed on both sides of the
aisle. Since 2001, the United States has
lost 50,000 factories and nearly 6 million
manufacturing jobs.
One of those jobs belonged to Cindy
Hewitt, a former employee of Dade Behring in Miami. Hewitt had a front-row
seat for Romney’s job-killing operation
when Bain took over her workplace in
1994. She saw first-hand how Romney
went about boosting profits for himself
and investors.
“They didn’t create jobs – they
slashed and burned jobs. I know because
I was there,” she said. “They eventually
closed our plant down and everyone lost
their jobs.”
Local 897 President Joe Vertalino.
Photos by Steve Dietz
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
11
P
HILADELPHIA – For many
months, it looked like Sunoco
would permanently close its
Philadelphia refinery, the oldest
and largest on the East Coast, and destroy
850 jobs.
But the USW and members of Local 10-1 never gave up fighting to save
the 335,000-barrel-per-day refinery and
ultimately pressured elected officials and
Sunoco to find an alternative to keep the
operation open and even growing.
The Carlyle Group, a private equity
manager that has previously worked with
the USW, on July 2 announced plans to
operate and expand the refinery as a joint
venture with Sunoco called Philadelphia
Energy Solutions.
Later that day, Local 10-1 members
ratified a new three-year contract that met
the union’s national oil industry bargaining
“
Nobody gave
us a shot. The USW
did the impossible.
We literally did the
impossible.
”
Jim Savage
President of Local 10-1
12
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
AP photo
pattern. The agreement includes raises of
2.5 percent in the first year and 3 percent in each of the final two years, plus a
401(k) plan and a cash option plan.
The contract was approved by an
overwhelming majority of those voting in
a record turnout.
“It shows you how happy everybody
is,” Local 10-1 President Jim Savage said
of the vote. “Nobody gave us a shot. The
USW did the impossible. We literally did
the impossible.”
Refinery shutdowns
Sunoco announced last September it
was getting out of the refinery business
and intended to close operations in Philadelphia and Marcus Hook, Pa. That same
month, ConocoPhillips announced it was
closing its refinery in nearby Trainer, Pa.
Including Sunoco Philadelphia, the
largest two of the three refineries have
since been saved from closure. Delta Airlines bought the Trainer plant from Phillips 66, a spinoff of ConocoPhillips, and
will start producing fuel for its operations
in the fall. (See page 15.)
In addition, Braskem America has acquired a unit of the Marcus Hook refinery
from Sunoco. Braskem will use the unit, a
propylene splitter, to process propylene for
use in its nearby plastic plant.
The Carlyle-Sunoco joint venture in
Philadelphia is expected to save the 850
existing jobs, secure the region’s fuel supply and create 100 to 200 new permanent
jobs as well as a large number of temporary construction jobs.
Local 10-1 member Damon Harrison gave credit to the USW for focusing
unrelenting attention on the plight of the
refinery workers and persistently applying pressure. It was part of a larger public
advocacy campaign that built support
among politicians and confidence among
investors.
“This is an absolute win-win. Quite
frankly, a lot of us didn’t have a lot of
faith. But they pulled it off. They got a
home run. They knocked it out of the
park,” Harrison said. “I couldn’t be happier with this union. My wife is happy, my
kids are happy, my guinea pigs are happy.”
Domestic oil, natural gas
The refinery will be updated to use
more domestic oil and less imported
crude, the high price of which threatened
the plant’s profits, and make use of natural
gas from the Marcellus Shale formation
located in Pennsylvania.
The deal is expected to close in the
third quarter.
The project is an example of how all
can profit when private capital, industry,
government and labor work to the benefit
of society, said International President Leo
W. Gerard.
“Not only will good paying manufacturing jobs be saved, but new ones will be
created as this vital facility is improved
and expanded,’’ Gerard added.
Gerard said the deal would not have
happened without the union and the commitment of its members. He applauded
International Vice President Tom Conway
and the USW legislative staff in Washington, D.C. Other departments including
strategic campaigns, research and public
affairs also played a role.
Using its research capabilities and
knowledge of the industry, the USW
pushed to have the federal Energy Information Administration (EIA), a part of the
U.S. Energy Department, study the impact
of the potential refinery shutdowns. The
dire results prompted the White House to
get involved.
The USW engaged local union members and capitalized on its previous relationships with Carlyle. Conway, who was
familiar with Carlyle from its previous
forays into manufacturing, was involved
in the negotiations as was International
Vice President Gary Beevers.
“I’m very proud of our local union
leaders and our members who refused to
be told there was no hope,” Gerard said.
“They refused to accept that and fought to
keep this facility open.”
“We fought this fight for a lot of days
and weeks trying to get attention, and we
did that with letters and phone calls and
arranging for busloads of members to go
to Washington,” he added. “We walked the
halls of Congress talking to people about
how much we believe in the future of this
facility and that this facility could be much
more than it was.”
New construction jobs
In addition to saving the existing jobs,
construction projects on tap to upgrade
the refinery and reduce its reliance on
imported crude oil will add 1,500 to 2,000
temporary construction jobs and 100 to
200 new permanent jobs.
Saving the facility involved an unusual
collaboration between labor, industry, private equity, the Democratic White House,
Photo by Rick Reinhard
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
13
Republican Gov. Tom Corbett, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, a Democrat,
and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, a Democrat
whose district includes the refinery site,
among others.
Brady said he became determined to
save the facility after he was visited in
Washington, D.C. by Local 10-1 President Savage and other USW members
who work at the refinery. He was moved
when he looked in the eyes of their kids.
“They had their children with them,
and I made a pledge to myself that I
would do everything in my power to
keep this refinery alive,” Brady said.
“This is a big fill-in-the-blank deal.”
David Marchick, managing director at Carlyle, said the deal would not
have been possible without support
from the USW, Corbett’s office and the
White House. Gene Sperling, director
of the National Economic Council and
Assistant to the President for Economic
Policy, was closely involved.
Sunoco Chairman Brian P. MacDonald called the partnership a great
14
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
example of what can happen when motivated people think creatively to solve
pressing problems. “The private sector,
government and labor all played important roles in getting this done,” he said.
State aid offered
Gov. Corbett lauded the project,
which is getting state support. The state
is offering up to $25 million in grants
and the opportunity to issue tax-exempt
bonds. He said a tax-free zone is also
possible.
The closure of the refinery would
have had a huge negative economic
impact on the region, in addition to the
obvious problems related to the loss of
so many good-paying jobs.
A shutdown would have created a
two-square-mile dead zone along the
Schuylkill River waterfront in South
Philadelphia, where the facility has operated for nearly 150 years. It opened as a
bulk petroleum storage facility in 1866
and started refinery operations in 1870.
The refinery generates annual direct
and indirect tax revenues of $460
million, according to data released by
Carlyle, which estimated the overall
economic impact to the state’s economy
at $11.2 billion. In addition to the direct
jobs, the refinery supports 10,500 indirect jobs in Pennsylvania and 24,000
indirect jobs overall in the United States.
For consumers who rely on its
products, the EIA study had warned that
the refinery’s closure could lead to spot
shortages of fuels and price hikes for
consumers.
Sunoco will contribute the assets of
the Philadelphia refinery to the joint venture in exchange for a minority interest.
Carlyle will hold the majority interest
and oversee day-to-day operations. Its
investment, which was not detailed, will
fund future capital projects and facility upgrades and enhance the refinery’s
working capital.
The joint venture will upgrade and
refurbish the plant’s catalytic cracker,
where petroleum crude oils are converted to more valuable gasoline and other
products.
A high-speed train unloading
facility will be built to allow the
refinery to limit its use of imported
crude oil and use greater quantities of
domestic crude, particularly the highquality, low-sulfur crude oil from the
Bakken region in North Dakota.
The joint venture is exploring the
use of Marcellus Shale natural gas as
a lower-cost, lower-emission fuel for
the refinery as well as for by-products
production. Equipment upgrades
include construction of a new naturalgas based hydrogen plant.
For David Wagner, a welder in the
maintenance department, it all means
he can put the day-and-night concerns
about how he would care for his family behind him.
“This has taken so much stress
off myself and my family… It’s like
Christmas and hitting the lottery,” he
said. “It has given us a second
lease on life.”
Photos by Rick Reinhard
D
elta Air Lines’ decision to purchase the shuttered ConocoPhillips refinery in Trainer, Pa., was a
victory for a USW-led campaign to save
the jobs of 400 workers, including some
220 USW members.
Oil industry analysts viewed Delta’s
purchase with skepticism, but it was
welcomed by Local 10-234 President
Denis Stephano, who said it makes sense
for large customers to buy refineries to
reduce fuel costs. Delta estimates the
move will eventually cut its annual fuel
bill by $300 million.
Local 10-234 joined USW workers
at two Sunoco refineries that were also
slated for closure in a campaign to keep
the facilities open. They lobbied elected
officials, wrote letters, held rallies and
called news conferences, arguing that
closing the refineries would have a domino effect on thousands of jobs and would
cause fuel shortages and price spikes.
The work paid off.
A Delta subsidiary, Monroe Energy,
finalized the $180 million purchase on
W
hile most local
agreements were
ratified within a few
weeks of the Jan. 31 National
Oil Bargaining settlement,
a few contracts remain
unsettled.
Tesoro Corp.
contracts affecting
workers in Los Angeles;
Salt Lake City; Kapolei,
Hawaii; Mandan, N.D.;
Anacortes, Wash.; and Martinez, Calif., all were settled
by June 7.
Tesoro agreed to the national
pattern settlement and to maintaining current benefits through 2014. The
Tesoro contracts are the only ones in the
National Oil Bargaining Program to have
that guarantee. The company also compromised on vacation time.
“Our members and unit leaders did a
great job, with the support of the International and the Tesoro Nationwide
Council, to secure a contract,” said Dave
Campbell, secretary-treasurer of Local
675 in Southern California. “We did not
get everything we wanted, but we came a
June 22. Monroe plans to invest $100
million in upgrades and eventually fulfill
80 percent of the airline’s domestic jet
fuel needs from Trainer and through
exchange agreements with other energy
companies.
Local 10-234 negotiated a back-towork agreement and contract with the
new owners. Members overwhelmingly
approved it in May. The deal followed
the national oil bargaining pattern and
included medical, dental and short-term
disability benefits, a 401(k) match and
competitive wages.
ConocoPhillips discontinued production last fall, and most employees were
laid off in January. The company, now
Phillips 66, threatened to demolish the
refinery if a buyer could not be found by
March 31, but that deadline was extended
as talks progressed.
While the Delta purchase was a victory for USW members, Stephano predicted
that more closures in the industry could
be looming.
lot closer to where we wanted to be than
to where Tesoro had wanted to take us.”
While Marathon Petroleum accepted
the national pattern agreement, disagreements arose with Local 8-719 in Catlettsburg, Ky., on work schedules, vacation
allotments and re-alignment of departments resulting in job duty and schedule
changes.
When the company prematurely declared impasse, the local filed unfair labor
practice charges with the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB).
“On April 23, the company implemented their last, best and final offer
when there was no bargaining impasse,”
Local 8-719 President Bret Queen said.
In Lima, Ohio, some 235 members
of Local 624 have been on strike against
Husky Energy since May 25. The local’s
contract expired April 14, and the union
has filed numerous unfair labor practice
charges with the NLRB.
The union and the company still
must come to an agreement on working
conditions, safety issues and the national
pattern agreement. The union held a rally
July 14 in Lima to help build support for
a fair contract.
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
15
G
eorge Calko brought the
memory of his great-grandfather, a steel worker killed on
the job in 1914, to the stage
at the USW’s 70th anniversary celebration in Cleveland, Ohio.
“He was 26 years old, a young man
with a young family,’’ Calko said of
his great-grandfather, who worked for
Andrew Carnegie’s steel empire in
Pittsburgh’s Mon Valley and was also
named George.
“He had come from Slovakia, and
was building a life for his family when
he fell from scaffolding at the Carrie
Furnaces at Homestead. Today
you can visit his
grave in Rankin.”
Calko was part of a troupe of worker/actors who retold the rousing story of
the USW in a multimedia presentation
celebrating the union’s history on May
24 at the Music Hall of the Cleveland
Public Auditorium.
The union marked its anniversary
and rededicated itself to the continuing fight for justice for workers in the
same hall where the union was founded
in May of 1942 by delegates from the
Steel Workers Organizing
Committee
(SWOC) and the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers.
Unlike his great-grandfather, whom
he called his “zetto,” Calko, 33, a crane
operator for RG Steel in Warren, Ohio,
benefits from the union’s experience in
negotiating contracts and fighting for
legislation to improve working conditions.
“I know that part
of what
George Calko
George Edwards, 94, was the only person
in the anniversary audience who had attended the founding convention in 1942.
He was greeted with a standing ovation when introduced by
International President Leo W. Gerard. Edwards remains active
with SOAR in Pittsburgh.
16
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
separates my fate from that of my zetto
is the 70 years of work this union has
done to get contract language and to
pass legislation that protects me,’’ he
said on stage.
We make the future
The theme of the event, “We Inherit
the Past; We Make the Future,” was
reinforced by the audience, a mix of
young and old and those in between.
Among the active Steelworkers in attendance were some 500 members of Next
Generation, the USW’s new young
members’ organization.
“We are here standing on the
shoulders of giants, some
of whom died
fighting for us,’’ International President
Leo W. Gerard told the audience. “We
have inherited that history and also an
immense responsibility. Now, it’s our
turn to make history, our turn to stand
up and fight back.”
SWOC was founded in 1936 by the
Congress of Industrial Organizations
under the leadership of United Mine
Workers President John L. Lewis, who
had already done battle with coal mine
owners.
SWOC, led by Phil Murray, its first
president, set out to organize all workers in steel, no matter their creed, color
or nationality. Those pioneers
vowed to increase
wages,
improve working conditions and secure
benefits including old age pensions,
workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance through negotiations
and legislation.
“From the very beginning, in this
very auditorium, our founders built a
fighting union, a visionary union, one
that welcomed everyone with open
arms and that had the foresight to
imagine a better world for our kids and
grandkids,’’ Gerard said.
“This is what our union has always
been about – building a brighter future
for those who come along after we’re
gone. The future demands no less
of us.”
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
17
Success and challenges
The anniversary was a celebration
of all the unions that became part of the
United Steelworkers (USW) over seven
decades and the struggles that they endured to build the labor movement.
The script for the presentation
served as a fast-paced review of labor
history, particularly noting areas of
USW leadership such as health and
safety reforms, the expansion of global
unionism and unfair trade battles.
Successes were mixed with challenges yet unmet. As workers tried to
band together in the United States and
Canada, owners did all they could to
divide them by job, skill, race, ethnicity,
sex and religion.
There were more than a few wet
eyes in the audience as the worker/
actors portrayed exploited mill, mine,
paper and railroad workers before
unionization, child
I
n addition to the 70th anniversary
celebration, the USW sponsored
conferences in Cleveland for glass
workers, young members, retirees
and volunteer union communicators.
See following pages for stories on
Next Generation, the USW’s new young
members’ organization, and the United
Steelworkers Press Association (USPA).
The 26-member SOAR executive
board endorsed President Obama for reelection to a second term at their meeting, which was held on May 22 and 23.
“President Obama has earned the
right to continue the job he was elected
to do in 2008,” SOAR President Connie
18
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
labor in glass plants, rubber workers and tire builders who sparked a
wave of sit-down strikes in 1936, and
the widows of asbestos and refinery
workers who died because of corporate
negligence.
“Being able to see the past struggles
and the pain endured by our members
over the years in their struggle for
justice, I must confess, brought more
than one tear to my eyes,” said Charlie
Averill, secretary-treasurer of SOAR,
the Steelworkers Organization of Active
Retirees.
Massacre remembered
All of the stories were touching
and some, like Calko’s, were personal.
Narrator Marco Trbovich spoke of his
father’s involvement in the
Entrekin said in his remarks. “He has
turned around our economy that was in
the midst of a deep recession by focusing his efforts on creating jobs, recommitting our nation to manufacturing and
enforcing U.S. trade laws.”
Entrekin credited the Obama administration with regulating Wall Street and
passing health care reform that prohibits
insurers from denying care to those with
pre-existing conditions.
“President Obama is committed to
protecting Social Security and is a strong
advocate of keeping Wall Street’s greedy
hands out of the Social Security Trust
Fund,” Entrekin said. “This president
has upheld his commitment to the
working middle class and retirees of
infamous 1937 Memorial Day Massacre
when policemen fired on workers outside a Republic Steel mill on Chicago’s
Southeast Side, killing 10 men. SWOC
had 110 companies under contract when
the massacre occurred. Republic was
one of the holdouts.
“My own father was on the picket
line at Republic Steel that day. He was a
big, powerful man who was deeply opposed to the use of violence in the labor
movement,” Trbovich said as a photo
of his father as a young man appeared
enlarged on a screen behind him.
“Yet, when he would recall what he
witnessed that day – 10 of his
this great nation and deserves to be reelected.”
“Building power through building
councils” was the theme of the glass
industry meeting, attended by nearly 100
USW members employed by a variety of
companies.
Company and industry councils
made presentations to the larger group
and shared accomplishments achieved
for their members through joint and
collaborative actions. The councils used
breakout time to meet and identify their
priorities and consider future actions.
For those local unions not currently
participating in a council there was a
chance for those groups to meet and
consider potential opportunities to create
new councils.
union brothers shot to death by those
cops; many more brutally beaten, 28
seriously injured, nine permanently
disabled – as he would recount witnessing those horrors, this peace-loving man
would say with chilling conviction,
‘Son, if I had had a machine gun that
day, I’d have shot every one of those
bastards.’ ”
The performance was met with enthusiastic applause and was followed by
an afternoon of workshops,
many of which dealt with mobilizing
labor to meet election-year challenges.
Gerard outlined deep fears that
right-wing, anti-worker forces bent on
destroying the labor movement could
prevail in this year’s elections in the
United States and Canada and take
away the union’s heritage.
“We’re going to
make
C
onnie Schultz’s father carried a lunch pail to work at a
utility company in Cleveland,
Ohio, every day of his life,
but told his friends that he never wanted
his four children to have to do the same.
Today, Schultz, a Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter, keeps her Dad’s lunch
bucket on her desk to hold the pens,
notebooks and stick-em pads central to
her craft, writing a column for Parade
magazine.
Schultz was the keynote speaker at
this year’s United Steelworkers Press
Association (USPA) conference, held
in conjunction with the USW’s 70th
anniversary celebration this May in
Cleveland.
The lunch pail, which sat on the
kitchen counter of her childhood home,
is a reminder to Schultz of the job her
father endured at the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. to take care of his
family.
“You kids are never going to carry
one of these to work,’’ her father would
tell Schultz and her siblings. “You kids
are going to college.”
Better life for kids
The story of the lunch pail, one of
many tales that make up the mosaic of
Schultz’s life, illustrates the desires of
hard-working middle-class parents who
want a better life for their children.
It’s the story of the types of dreams
the future by standing up and fighting
back,’’ he said. “Stand up. Be proud.
Fight for your kids. Fight for your
grandkids, and fight for progress.”
and aspirations of the men and women
who make up the USW, a counterpoint
to the false messages labor’s opponents
spread to discredit the movement.
Schultz urged USPA members, who
volunteer to write local union newsletters and website content, to explore the
unique tales of the men and women in
their local unions.
Through those stories, the USPA can
remind its audiences that it’s not wrong
to expect a fair wage for a fair day’s
work. In fact, it is honorable to provide
a home for our families, put food on the
table, educate our children and prepare
for a dignified retirement.
Five decades of help
The USPA is in its fifth decade of
working with local union editors, webmasters and communicators and providing them the tools to help improve
communications with members.
Prior to the conference, a “New
Blueprint for the USPA” was submitted
to the union’s International Executive
Board. Essentially a recommitment by
the USPA Executive Board toward revitalizing the association, the document
contains short and long-term improvement suggestions. Details will appear in
a summer edition of Scoop, the USPA
newsletter.
To find out more about the USPA or
to sign up for a free membership, go to:
www.usw.org/resources/uspa.
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
19
to invent something, think of some new
way of doing something, some way we
can enhance our ability to fight back,”
Gerard said, “and we’re going to develop
that and we’re going to fight back even
smarter and tougher.”
Cultivating young leaders
M
ore than 500 young Steelworkers who attended the
USW’s first Next Generation conference left Cleveland, Ohio, brimming with energy to
continue the activism that has been the
union’s hallmark for 70 years.
“We are primed, pumped and ready
for action,” Joshua Lege, a member of
Local 227 in Pasadena, Texas, said after
the May 25 conference.
Next Generation is a new program
designed to attract more young activists
and to help educate, mentor and prepare
them to one day inherit leadership roles
in the union. Its first conference was held
in conjunction with the union’s 70th anniversary celebration.
“We need you,” International President Leo W. Gerard told the participants.
“We need you now more than ever. We
need you to be active. We need your energy, your creativity, your commitment.”
The Next Generation program is still
in its infancy, but the USW is committed to making it a permanent fixture of
the union alongside Rapid Response, the
20
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
education and action network for legislative issues, and Women of Steel, a leadership development program required at
each local.
“As our movement and our union
come to a critical crossroads, it is both
morality and necessity that we recommit
ourselves to preparing the next generation of leadership,” said International
Vice President Fred Redmond, who is
helping to develop the program.
In calling upon young workers, Gerard urged them to not only participate in
this year’s crucial national election, but
to also look ahead to their future roles in
the union and the larger community.
“If you want to be a leader in this
union, be a leader now,’’ Gerard said as
he urged young members to get involved
in politics and even consider running for
office themselves. “We have to believe
people power can beat big money. Seize
the opportunity the union has given you.”
Gerard pointed to the success of
Rapid Response, which grew from an
experiment in workplace communications and activism conducted nearly 20
years ago by two Ohio brothers, Donnie
and Ronnie Blatt.
“So somebody in this room is going
The USW is not alone in its interest in
cultivating young leaders. Next Generation has worked closely with the AFLCIO, whose Young Worker Advisory
Council includes more than 20 members
from labor unions around the country,
including the USW.
Nick Gaitaud, a millwright and
member of Local 7150 in Albany, Ore.,
has developed into a leading young activist. He serves on his local’s health and
safety committee and leads the Oregon
state AFL-CIO’s Young Emerging Labor
Leaders (YELL) organization, as well as
being a member of NEXT and the Young
Workers Advisory Council.
Gaitaud introduced AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Schuler, who heads
the federation’s young worker efforts, as
a passionate labor union advocate who
knows how to get things done.
Schuler, who started her labor
career out of college with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
(IBEW), was delighted with the large
USW turnout and challenged the young
workers to be active in seeking change.
Huge challenge
One huge challenge, she said, is to
reverse the American public’s eroding
view of the labor movement. More than
75 percent of Americans approved of labor unions in the 1950s, a figure that has
dropped to barely more than half today.
“That’s what we’re up against,’’ she
said. “How are we going to win the
case for good jobs, voting rights, a fair
economy and fair elections if we don’t
have people on our side?’’
Raising the rate of unionization in
the United States from its current 11.8
percent of the work force will require
working in our communities and partnering with other organizations and groups
that share labor’s goals and values, she
said.
“We’re going to start building our
unions again, and fighting for economic
and social justice in a more effective way.
We are expanding our reach,” she said.
“We’re trying to build a broader and
stronger more effective movement for
all working people, union and non-union
alike, and that means... new leadership,
just like you, young people, your generation.”
At 47, Wendell McGee, vice president of Local 377 in Georgetown, S.C.,
doesn’t quite fit the description of a
young worker, but he applauded the idea
of engaging a new generation of members.
“The younger folks need to see what’s
really going on, give them a chance to
participate so when the older folks leave
it won’t be so hard,” he said.
McGee was joined by Josh McConnell, a 23-year-old USW colleague at
International Paper. McConnell has been
a union member for only a few months.
“At first you think the union is just
your local,” McConnell said, “but now
I’m starting to see the huge extent of the
whole union.”
Conference participants spent the
morning learning about the political and
economic circumstances that they may
eventually face as union leaders: rightwing politicians whose free-market economic practices eliminate manufacturing
jobs and promote record-level income
disparity.
“Your generation did not create these
problems but it will be on your
generation to deal with them,” Canadian
National Director Ken Neumann said of
these troubling trends. Yet he emphasized
that as a member of the union, “you have
an organization that’s providing you with
the tools to give you a better life.”
Seeking solutions
The second portion of the day was
dedicated to small-group sessions brainstorming solutions to key problem issues
members had identified in advance,
including ways to recruit new members
into greater participation, how to get the
union’s message out and what members
can do to be more politically active.
The number one solution to all these
issues, members decided, was more
member-to-member contact. Mentoring younger members creates a sense of
community that can lead to their greater
involvement. At the same time, volunteer
work with charities and other organizations helps give a positive face to the
union in the community.
While political action can be as
far-reaching as using new telephone
technology to call union members in
other states on behalf of issues and
candidates, talking to co-workers on the
shop floor is a crucial first step in making
a political impact.
“It has opened my eyes,” Craig
Waczovszky of Local 735 in Cleveland
said after the conference. “I am talking to
my union brothers and sisters about my
experience.”
The conference ended with International Executive Board members encouraging younger members to seize the moment and participate. The union’s leaders
affirmed their dedication to engaging the
next generation at a union-wide level,
but cautioned participants to work first
through their locals and districts.
“You have to be patient, but there’s
nothing wrong with being ambitious,” International Vice President Tom Conway
said. “The changes in your local union
are going to happen a lot faster if you
just go do it. Do things: see how much
trouble you get in.”
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
21
U
SW political activists have
traditionally focused much of
their energy on mobilizing and
helping members get to the
polls on Election Day.
This year, those activists face a new
and potentially even bigger challenge:
Making sure citizens will be able to
exercise their right to vote when they get
to their polling places.
“There is already so much apathy, and
if you make it harder for people to vote,
that is only going to get worse,” said Kim
Smith, who served as president of Local
9-508 in Summerville, S.C., from 2001
until May when she joined the USW’s
efforts to counter voter suppression.
State-by-state attacks on voting rights
have taken several forms: Some states
are instituting new photo-ID requirements that threaten to block elderly, poor
and minority voters; some are attempting
to purge voter rolls of “non-citizens,”
which could disenfranchise minorities
and legal immigrants; and some have
enacted stricter voter-registration laws
and threatened activists with hefty fines
and even jail time for errors in handling
registration documents.
Over the past two years, lawmakers in
32 states, mostly ones with Republicancontrolled legislatures, have introduced
voter suppression measures. The most
widespread is the requirement that voters
have photo IDs.
22
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
At first glance, the request seems
reasonable. But a closer look reveals that
that a large number of poor and elderly
U.S. citizens, many of whom have been
voting legally for their entire adult lives,
have no “official” photo IDs. And the
process of getting one can be difficult,
time consuming and costly.
In that way, Smith said, the laws
are similar to a “poll tax,” which many
southern states once employed to restrict
the voting rights of African Americans.
Those “Jim Crow” style provisions
have led groups like the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU) to challenge
many of the laws in court. There have
been a few victories, most notably in
Texas, Florida and Wisconsin, but there
also have been appeals, and the fight is
far from over.
For some, particularly poor or elderly
voters, the new barriers are too much to
overcome on their own. That’s where the
USW tries to make the difference.
Leaders from the USW’s Civil Rights
department are organizing town hall
meetings in states where ID laws have
passed, educating voters about the new
requirements, and how they can go about
getting the documents they need. Local
political and religious leaders, as well as
representatives of the USW, the NAACP,
the ACLU and the League of Women
Voters, have participated in the forums.
Besides educating voters, the forums
have allowed the USW to collect names
and numbers for volunteers across the
United States who are signing up to help
register voters, drive them to the polls or
assist them in getting the required IDs.
“If our members weren’t doing this, it
might not be getting done,” Smith said.
Some town hall meetings have drawn
more than 200 people and generated
widespread media coverage, Smith said.
“We can’t let people be blind to what
is going on. They need to understand
what is happening, and why it is happening,” she said.
One Republican leader even admitted
what so many others in his party have
tried to deny. That was Mike Turzai,
speaker of the house in Pennsylvania,
who told a crowd at a recent GOP state
committee meeting that Pennsylvania’s
new ID law would “allow Gov. Romney
to win the state.”
The new laws are ostensibly intended
to guard against fraud. But even proponents of the laws have acknowledged
that there has been no real problem with
in-person fraud at the polls.
In fact, Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott of Texas, the nation’s
second-biggest state, recently spent two
years and $1.4 million investigating voter
fraud. The probe turned up nothing.
In swing states like Virginia, the new
laws could have the power to change
the outcome of the election, said Arnold
Outlaw, president of Local 8888 at the
Northrop Grumman shipyard in Newport
News.
Because President Obama won Virginia’s 13 electoral votes in 2008 by little
more than 200,000 out of almost 4 million votes cast, it’s possible that the new
laws could result in the wrong candidate
winning the 2012 presidential election.
“This could have grievous effects on
the election,” Outlaw said. “It’s another
ploy to try to destroy the president.”
In Ohio, another swing state crucial
for both parties’ chances in November,
a group of labor organizations including
the USW has challenged a law that has
resulted in the rejection of thousands of
provisional ballots every election due to
poll worker errors.
“The Ohio system is fundamentally
unfair to both hardworking poll workers
– who are only trying to help people vote
– and to the voters whose entire ballots
are disqualified without notice after the
election,” said District 1 Director David
McCall. “Ohio needs to fix this unfair
system before the November election.”
In 2008, the law resulted in the rejection of 14,000 ballots because they were
cast in the wrong precinct due to poll
worker errors.
Smith said because so many states
have enacted different laws, they also
present a hardship for out-of-state college
students, who often are first-time voters
and who as a result aren’t always certain
where they are eligible to vote, or what
the legal requirements are there.
Because students, minorities, the poor
and the elderly are the voting blocs most
likely to be silenced, and those groups
tend not to vote with the GOP, the new
laws seem specifically targeted to influence the outcome of elections, said International Vice President Fred Redmond.
“Our elected officials should be
focused on getting Americans back to
work. Unfortunately, too many of them
seem more interested in taking away our
rights,” Redmond said.
“The motives behind this voter suppression effort go against the very nature
of our democracy,” he added. “We should
be making it easier for people to
vote – not harder.”
Photo by Steve Dietz
I
n 1994, when Rapid Response
began, there were phone trees and
faxes. Today, we have e-mail, Facebook, texting and Twitter.
But no matter what the medium, USW
activists are wasting no time making sure
members have the information they need
to make a difference.
“We educate people on the issues so
they are able to make informed decisions,” said Paul Rausch of Chesterton,
Ind., a Rapid Response activist and member of Local 9231.
With November elections looming,
the Rapid Response team is working on
making sure USW members get to the
polls.
This year, with key states such as
Florida and Pennsylvania enacting laws
purging longtime voters from registration
rolls, or requiring photo IDs, thousands of
poor, elderly and minority voters could be
turned away on Election Day.
“Everyone deserves to have their say,
and we need to defend that right,” Rausch
said.
In Indiana, Rausch is working to
provide local unions with lists of voters
who are in danger of being turned away,
so problems can be solved early. Rapid
Response plans similar programs in other
states.
In some cases, there are new risks
associated with voter registration drives.
In Virginia, for example, activists could
face fines or jail time if documents are
improperly handled.
“They’ve made it as hard as possible
for us to do voter registration,” said Mark
Powers of Danville, Va., a 32-year employee of Goodyear Tire and Rubber and
COPE chairman at Local 831.
In Fresno, Calif., Local 474 members led by Dave Celaya have organized
community events including a car and
motorcycle show and picnic, giving
activists a more relaxed environment to
discuss issues.
Once the registration campaigns wind
down, volunteers will focus on issues that
affect working families, including the
simple right to have a union.
“USW activists will work hard in the
fight against right-wing voter suppression
campaigns as well as continue to advocate that all workers have a voice in their
workplace,” said International SecretaryTreasurer Stan Johnson.
Besides Wisconsin, anti-union efforts have serfaced in Colorado, Indiana,
Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio and
elsewhere.
“This attempt to eliminate workers’
voices in the workplace is doing further damage to the working class,” said
Rausch, who works at ArcelorMittal’s
I/N Tek plant in New Carlisle, Ind. “It’s
moving more and more dollars to the top
1 percent.”
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
23
W
ith boots on the ground,
determination and help
from new technology,
the USW showed in a
Pennsylvania congressional primary
that it can make the difference in a
tight election.
“As long as we can communicate
effectively with our members we can
win,” USW member and political
volunteer Daniel Nunzir said after the
union’s candidate, U.S. Rep. Mark
Critz, narrowly beat fellow Democrat Rep. Jason Altmire in an April
primary election for a combined
Congressional district.
With the 2012 presidential race
looming, and with coordinated
attacks on bargaining and voting
rights and other threats mounting on
the state level, it’s never been more
important for members to talk to each
other about the issues that matter to
working families.
“I hear from members who say
the union shouldn’t be involved in
politics, that we should just represent
our members,” Nunzir added. “What
a lot of people don’t realize is that
getting the right people in office helps
us to represent our members.”
The right person this spring in the
newly redrawn House District 12 was
Critz, a down-to-earth centrist with a
working-class background who won
a special election in 2010 to succeed
the late John Murtha.
Altmire, a former hospital executive, was heavily favored to win the
election over the underdog Critz. The
two were forced to compete because
Republican gerrymandering combined two Democratic seats in order
to eliminate the Congressional district
Pennsylvania lost because of population decline.
“Altmire had way more money.
He had way more name recognition. He had what was considered an
insurmountable lead, so everything
was against us,’’ Political Director
Tim Waters said. “That’s why this is a
good example of how we can affect a
federal election at this level.”
Previously supported by labor,
How to Get Involved
24
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
Altmire earned the USW’s ire for
voting against the Patient Protection
and Affordable Health Care Act after
promising the Steelworkers he’d support health insurance reform.
The 11th -hour switch was one of
a series of decisions that Altmire had
made in office that illustrated how the
suburban Pittsburgh Congressman
turned away from the interests of
working people.
Pundits skeptical
“Pundits were skeptical we could
prevail,’’ said International President
Leo W. Gerard. “But sheer determination and a tenacious commitment
by our members’ boots-on-the-ground
persuaded the voters, and motivated a
solid turnout to overcome the advantages in the redrawn district that was
thought to belong to Rep. Altmire.”
Altmire’s relationship with the
USW began with promise in 2006,
when Steelworkers used their vaunted
“ground game” to propel him to victory over Republican Melissa Hart
and help shift the balance of power in
Washington. But his later move to the
right, presumably made to ensure reelection in a moderate district, instead
led to his defeat.
“We fought for Jason, but he did
not make himself very accessible
after that,’’ said Nunzir, a Local 256L
member who works for Valspar Corp.
in Monaca, Pa. “He didn’t come to
the forefront for us on the issues that
mattered to workers.”
Driven by Altmire’s betrayal and
Critz’s labor record, more than 400
USW activists knocked on thousands
of doors in the district, while others
visited every USW work site, leafleted plant gates, stuffed envelopes
with pro-Critz mailings and worked
telephones.
Rather than being tied to oldfashioned phone banks with limited
seats, member activists used a new
USW political tool called a virtual
predictive dialer that allowed them to
participate on their phone from any
location to talk with union members
in the district and urge them to get
out the vote.
If you are interested in getting involved, here is contact information for the
USW political program:
Phone: 1-866-836-5103 Web: www.usw.org/political
Twitter: @uswpolitical
Facebook: www.facebook.com/uswpolitical
Three weeks before the election, polls showed Altmire with a
24-point lead over Critz in the new
district. USW activists worked tirelessly to close the gap.
In the last 36 hours of the campaign alone, USW members turned
on the heat and made 35,312 calls to
fellow union members on behalf of
Critz, a previously unheard of pace.
On the Monday evening before the
vote, the virtual dialer enabled 192
volunteers to be on the phone at the
same time.
“We were able to go out to plant
gates, to the phones, to the doors,
and communicate with members,”
Nunzir said. “Critz did not have the
name recognition that Altmire had.
A lot of people didn’t know him and
had a lot of questions about him, and
we were able to answer them.”
It turned out that the personal,
member-to-member communications from the USW was the key to
victory for Critz, who had previously represented less than 30 percent
of the remade district.
Grassroots field program
“We and our labor allies ran an
experienced, smart grassroots field
program with shoe leather and sheer
determination that demonstrated we
had the ability to elect Altmire to
his first term, and to run him out of
office when he broke his word by
his conservative voting record that
put him on the side of the opposing political party more often than
on the side of working families,”
Gerard said.
Exit polling showed Steelworkers voted overwhelmingly for Critz,
especially in the region around
Johnstown, a hard-hit steel town at
the center of his original district.
Waters, the political director,
said union voters respond when you
build capacity on the ground, talk to
them and their families about why a
race matters to them, why they need
to be involved, and give them ways
to participate.
“The lesson is, when you make a
principled fight like we did, and you
ignore the obstacles and continue to
find ways to deal with problems and
hurdles, hey, we can make anything
happen,” he said.
T
he real winners in the Wisconsin recall election were
the businesses and billionaires who poured big money
into the campaign of Republican Gov.
Scott Walker. Democracy seems to be
the loser.
It’s a situation that could repeat
itself in the November election thanks
to Citizens United, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision that proclaimed
corporations have the First Amendment right to spend unlimited money
in any U.S. election – local, state or
national – without disclosure.
“Let’s be clear: Citizens United
has ushered in a new era of elections
and it’s not a pretty picture,’’ said
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
“This has serious repercussions for
our democracy.”
According to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, candidates and
independent groups spent more than
$63.5 million on the recall effort in
Wisconsin, making it the state’s most
expensive election ever.
Walker’s campaign outspent Democrat Tom Barrett by $30.5 million to $4
million, a more than 7 to 1 advantage.
Another $30 million or so came from
independent outsiders, including the
conservative billionaire Koch brothers and
casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
“In other words, business and billionaires bought this election for Walker,’’
wrote Peter Dreier, who chairs the Urban
& Environmental Policy Department at
Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Victory margin slim, expensive
Yet the margin of victory was slim
with Walker beating Barrett with just 53
percent of the vote. In effect, Walker spent
$23 for each vote he received while Barrett’s campaign spent $3.47 per vote.
And even though Walker narrowly
fended off the recall, Republicans lost
control of the state Senate, blunting the
expected introduction of Right-to-Work
(for less) legislation.
According to Dreier, if the Barrett
campaign had even one-third of the warchest that Walker had, it would have been
able to mount a more formidable grassroots get-out-the-vote campaign and put
more money into TV and radio. Barrett, he
believes, would have prevailed.
If corporate money has broken our
democracy, the Citizens United decision
was the tool that got the job done.
In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that
the restrictions on corporate expenditures
in elections contained in the Bipartisan
Campaign Reform Act of 2002 violated
the First Amendment.
The decision expanded the legal notion, introduced by the court in 1886, that
a corporation is legally a person with the
same constitutionally protected rights.
More than a dozen senators and representatives have introduced their own
Constitutional amendments seeking to
overturn the law. President Obama has
also expressed support for a constitutional
amendment to place reasonable limits on
campaign spending.
Citizens United was the most radical
decision in a series of recent Supreme
Court rulings in favor of corporations, said
attorney Jeffrey Clements, a co-founder
of Free Speech for People, a nonpartisan
campaign to overturn the decision through
a constitutional amendment.
“The decision, in many ways, symbolizes how far off track we have fallen
from our ideal of the American Republic,
governed by the people,” Clements said in
a forward to his book, “Corporations are
Not People.”
To find out how to help enact a constitutional amendment that puts people ahead
of corporations, visit the Free Speech for
People campaign online at:
www.freespeechforpeople.org.
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
25
N
A
n agreement reached in July ended
a lockout at a Rio Tinto aluminum
smelter in Alma, Quebec, put 780
USW members back to work and
halted a union campaign to get the company’s
metals out of this year’s Summer Games.
The Alma workers, members of Local 9490,
had been locked out since Jan. 1, with subcontracting the major sticking point in negotiations. An agreement that runs until the end of
2015 was ratified July 5 by a wide margin.
The dispute attracted worldwide attention
this spring when Local 392 members at a Rio
Tinto subsidiary in Utah launched a campaign
to end the mining giant’s involvement in the
London Olympics if the lockout continued. A
vast majority of the metal in Olympic medals
comes from the Utah site.
The campaign, named “Off The Podium,”
drew support from workers in Australia,
England and elsewhere, and ultimately helped
bring an end to the lockout.
With help from allies across the globe,
workers in Alma stood strong in resisting Rio
Tinto’s attempts to replace retiring workers
with subcontractors earning half the wages, no
pension and no benefits.
The Alma, Quebec, smelter has been one
of Rio Tinto Alcan’s most productive smelters
in North America, producing 438,000 tons of
aluminum a year.
“Our members and their families suffered
for six long months but never wavered,’’ said
Local 9490 President Marc Maltais. “Our
members are walking back into the plant as
heroes.”
26
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
o one works harder than Mike Pyne when it comes to raising
volunteer funds for the USW’s Political Action Committee
(PAC) in Michigan and Wisconsin.
“He lives and breathes politics and PAC,” USW PAC Director Mike Scarver said of Pyne, the soon-to-retire political and PAC coordinator for District 2. “No one hustles harder.”
Pyne is known for running PAC fundraisers at district conferences that
Scarver said typically bring in $15,000 to $35,000 for the cause of electing
politicians who support the USW and its members.
He was chosen for PAC member of the 2012 third quarter by District
2 Director Mike Bolton and International Vice President Jon Geenen, who
oversees the union’s paper industry sector.
Pyne, however, said the district has more to do to convince members to
participate in PAC check-offs and local fundraisers. “I don’t want to leave
any impression that we are satisfied,’’ he added.
Pyne began his career as a member of Allied Industrial Workers (AIW)
Local 182 at Motor Wheel Corp. in Lansing, Mich., in 1972, and began
working on political campaigns almost immediately. He was elected president of the local in 1977 after holding various other offices.
In 1984, he joined the COPE Department of the Michigan AFL-CIO
and four years later became an organizer with the AIW, which ultimately
became part of the USW.
Pyne transferred to Wisconsin in 1994 and continued to organize for the
United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU), which in 1999 merged
with the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) to form the
Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union
(PACE). PACE merged with the USW in 2005.
Geenen called Pyne a cornerstone of USW activism.
“He’s really a lifelong political activist and brought an awful lot to
UPIU and to PACE and continues to this day to bring a lot to our own
political program,” Geenen said.
“And it’s not just PAC funding, although he is an expert at that. If you
are going to compete against corporate America, you have to put some skin
in the game. Money isn’t the whole picture. The rest is getting boots on the
ground and working your tail off.”
Over the decades, Pyne has knocked on doors of more union households than he could ever count. He said he goes election canvassing every
time he is asked to do so.
“We have to be involved in politics. It’s the only way we can serve our
membership effectively,” said Pyne, who calls voting the “epitome of freedom. It’s our last best chance,” he said, “to have a voice in what’s going on,
the affairs of our government.”
A
I
nternational President Leo W. Gerard urged delegates to
Unite the Union’s national policy conference in the United
Kingdom to stand up and fight back against economic policies that are hurting workers.
Delegates to the conference, the equivalent of a USW constitutional convention, did just that in announcing the formation of
a $38 million strike fund to resist attacks on workers.
The fund, the first for the union, was unveiled by Unite leader
Len McCluskey at the conference, held in Brighton, England.
Some 700 delegates representing 1.5 million members attended.
“It should give workers the confidence that when they are
taking action their mortgages will not be threatened,” McCluskey said of the fund.
Unite is the largest labor union in the United Kingdom and
Ireland. It also is the USW’s partner in the 2.2 million-member
global union, Workers Uniting.
Delegates to the policy conference condemned austerity policies enforced by the right-wing UK government as well as attacks on unions across Europe. They pledged to push the Labour
Party to take a stronger stand against cuts in public employee
pensions and government services.
Conference delegates called for a radical overhaul of Britain’s financial and banking system. Among the demands was a
“Robin Hood tax” on financial transactions, the proceeds from
which could be used to alleviate government-imposed cuts on
public services and employee pensions.
The USW’s delegation included John Paul Smith, a member
of Local 7-669 at the Honeywell plant in Metropolis, Ill., who
participated in a discussion on international solidarity.
Also attending were International Vice President Carol
Landry, retired International Affairs Director Jerry Fernandez,
International Affairs Director Ben Davis, and District 2 staff
representative Sally Feistel.
In his address, Gerard linked the economic crisis in the
United Kingdom and Europe to the right-wing assault on voting
rights and collective bargaining in the United States. He called
on members to “stand up and fight back against right-wing economic policies.”
In describing the collaboration of the USW and Unite on
political and economic action programs, Gerard emphasized
joint organizing and bargaining campaigns. He proposed linking
union-supported think tanks in the United Kingdom and North
America to develop worker-friendly policies.
new global union federation that represents 50 million workers in 140 countries around the world must
organize and get active across the globe to stand its
ground against giant multinational corporations, International President Leo W. Gerard said.
“It’s important that we build the global infrastructure to be
able to fight back in cases of aggression,” Gerard said. “We
must be able to do more than pass resolutions and write letters.
We must organize, organize, organize, globally.”
Gerard was among the USW leaders who participated in the
historic founding convention of IndustriALL, the new federation that brings together affiliates of the International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF), the International Federation of
Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM)
and the International Textiles Garment and Leather Workers’
Federation (ITGLWF). The USW was an affiliate of both the
IMF and the ICEM.
The June convention in Denmark included more than 1,000
delegates representing 354 unions in 109 countries. Delegates
elected former IMF leaders Berthold Huber as president and
Jyrki Raina as general secretary.
“IndustriALL will fight for a new model of globalization, a
new economic and social model that puts people first, based on
democracy and social justice,” Raina said. “IndustriALL will
challenge the power of multinational companies.”
The USW’s Gerard, Canadian National Director Ken Neumann, International Vice President Carol Landry and Director
of International Affairs Ben Davis were elected to IndustriALL’s executive committee.
“IndustriALL is a triumph for solidarity. This new global
union will be a good force for working people all over the
world,” Neumann said. “With 50 million members, IndustriALL has the strength and the reach to take on the power of
multinational companies like Rio Tinto and Vale.”
One of the first actions IndustriALL took was to ask workers
around the world to sign an online petition calling on Rio Tinto
Alcan to end a six-month lockout of USW members in Alma,
Quebec. The dispute ended some two weeks later.
“Steelworkers have led the way in fighting global corporations in every way possible – from the bargaining table to
online, in the courts, legislatively, in the streets and in corporate
boardrooms,” Gerard said. “When we all fight together, our
power is awesome.”
For more information about IndustriALL:
www.industriall-union.org
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
27
Republicans Prefer Millionaires Club
W
ith factions in Washington, D.C., and
statehouses across the country fighting,
slinging mud and producing Pinocchio-rated
campaign videos, it’s legitimate for Americans to
ask: Who’s givin’ the middle class some lovin’?
Well, it ain’t Republicans. That’s for sure.
Take these two important examples from the
news: Obamacare and tax breaks for the rich.
Since Obamacare passed, Republicans have
voted 30 times to repeal, defund or erode it. They
want to gut or kill the law that protects middleclass Americans by:
• forbidding health insurers from dropping
policy holders when they get sick;
• prohibiting insurers from denying coverage for children with pre-existing conditions;
• permitting parents to keep 6.6 million
children on family policies until the
young adults turn 26;
• saving 5.3 million senior citizens $3.7
billion by closing the donut hole in their
prescription coverage;
• requiring rate-gouging insurers pay
rebates to policy holders, which means
12.8 million Americans will get $1.1 billion back this year;
• mandating large employers like Wal-Mart
provide insurance for their workers or
pay penalties.
House votes for repeal (again)
The Republicans who control the House of
Representatives repeatedly voted to end Obamacare while offering no alternative for the Obamacare protections or for the law’s provisions to
cover 30 million uninsured Americans.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the
constitutionality of the vast majority of the law,
including the individual mandate that requires
uncovered Americans who can afford insurance
to buy it or pay a penalty with their income taxes.
The mandate was the brainchild of the conservative Heritage Foundation. When GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney was governor of
Massachusetts, he signed a health insurance law
with an individual mandate. Republicans praised
him for it even though the Romneycare penalty is
much higher than the Obamacare fine.
It is estimated that less than 1 percent of
Americans will pay the penalty. Most will get
insurance. That’s because Obamacare requires
more employers to provide it. Medicaid will be
expanded to cover more poor people. And the
new Health Insurance Exchanges will supply affordable insurance choices.
The way health insurance works now, those
without it freeload. The uninsured show up at
emergency rooms when they have accidents or
fall ill. Under federal law, emergency rooms
28
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
must treat them. But hospitals have a hard time
getting them to pay the bills. So they charge
insured patients extra to cover the costs. That’s
how the uninsured sponge off of the insured.
The mandate: A Republican idea
The individual mandate makes that practice
less attractive because freeloaders will have to
pay a fine for failing to get insurance. For most,
that will be an incentive to buy insurance instead.
That was the idea when the right-wing Heritage Foundation proposed it. And that was the
idea when Romney passed it in Massachusetts,
where it has worked well. But when it came to
the individual mandate in Obamacare, Republicans suddenly hated it. GOP governors across the
nation filed suit urging the U.S. Supreme Court
to declare the law unconstitutional.
It didn’t. That means Obamacare continues to
protect middle-class Americans from insurance
company abuses.
House Republicans responded to the Supreme
Court decision by voting – again – to repeal
Obamacare. This is useless because the Democrats who control the Senate will not rescind the
protections. Nor will Obama. But Republicans in
the House keep wasting time trying to take health
insurance benefits away from the middle class
anyway.
The same week Republicans in the House
took up Obamacare again, they resumed their
loud defense of extending the Bush tax breaks
for the rich, which expire Dec. 31.
The issue arose because President Obama
asked the GOP to enact what everyone could
agree on – extending tax breaks for the middle
class. Obama proposed continuing the tax cut for
all income under $250,000. That would mean no
difference for 98 percent of households and 97
percent of businesses. Ending Bush’s temporary
tax reduction on income above $250,000 would
raise $850 billion over a decade to pay for essential government programs and to reduce the
deficit.
Instead of asking the nation’s richest to pay
the rates they did when Bill Clinton was president, Republicans prefer to slash $850 billion
from crucial programs like Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid.
Republicans are insisting on tax breaks for
millionaires and billionaires, even though some
of them – including billionaire investor Warren
Buffett and the Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal
Strength – have formally asked Congress to end
the breaks.
Republicans have chosen sides. They’re going with the rich. They want the millionaires and
billionaires on their team. And they don’t care
if prostrating themselves before the rich permanently wounds the middle class.
A
s an adjunct instructor teaching two classes per semester at
Duquesne University, Josh Zelesnick makes about $10,000
per year. He has no health insurance, no
retirement plan and no office of his own.
Sharing an office with 12 others
means Zelesnick must take meetings into
the hallway or to a coffee shop when he
needs a place to talk with students.
“You can get around it, but it just
shows a lack of respect within the administration, and it’s detrimental to the
students,” he said.
That lack of respect is what led
Zelesnick and his colleagues to talk with
co-workers last year about unionizing
adjuncts at the Catholic university’s
Pittsburgh campus.
They contacted the USW to move the
process forward, drawn to the union because of the autonomy offered to locals,
as well as its history, diversity, level of
respect in Pittsburgh, and “tremendous
sense of solidarity,” Zelesnick said. “It
was a pretty easy decision.”
The road since then, though, has been
anything but smooth. Duquesne signed
an agreement to allow an NLRB-supervised election, and then tried to cancel
it, claiming an exemption on religious
grounds.
Region 6 of the NLRB rejected that
argument based on a well-established
rule that a party may withdraw from such
an agreement only under unusual circumstances or if all parties agree.
A
memo issued this spring
by the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration
(OSHA) contained a warning
that many USW members already knew:
Too many safety programs discourage
Josh Zelesnick
Administrators appealed to the full
NLRB and, should they lose, are expected to bring the case to federal appellate
court. In the meantime, the NLRB scheduled a mail ballot election.
Duquesne and most other universities
hire adjuncts on an as-needed basis. Like
their tenure-track counterparts, they are
highly educated and extremely qualified.
But at the end of the school year, there is
no guarantee when or if they will return
to work.
A few years ago, Zelesnick, who has
a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative
writing, received less than two weeks’
notice that Duquesne was cancelling a
class he was preparing to teach. To make
ends meet, he was forced to take a job at
a Trader Joe’s market.
the reporting of accidents, leading to less
safe workplaces.
The memo said “reporting a work-related injury or illness is a core employee
right” and that disciplining employees
for doing so is against the law. OSHA
outlined two basic ways in which employers discourage reporting: by taking
disciplinary action against employees,
and by providing incentives to employees for reducing the number of reports.
Both practices lead to unsafe workplaces and can be considered forms of
discrimination, the memo said. “If employees do not feel free to report injuries
or illnesses, the employer’s entire work
force is put at risk.”
On incentive-based programs, the
memo said: “Such programs might be
well-intentioned efforts by employers
to encourage their workers to use safe
Eventually, he landed another parttime teaching job to supplement his
Duquesne salary, but that only brought
his annual pay to about $20,000 for work
that, during a busy week, can take 80
hours.
“We have people who have been
teaching here 25 years and never know if
they have a job next semester,” another
Duquesne adjunct, Robin J. Sowards,
told The New York Times.
Duquesne’s treatment of adjuncts is
hardly unique. Without union protection, many earn less teaching one course
than the tuition paid by one student for
a three-credit class. Following the lead
taken at Duquesne, adjuncts at several
other Pittsburgh-area universities have
expressed interest in the union.
practices. However, there are better ways
to encourage safe work practices.”
Despite the criticism, more than 90
percent of attendees at this year’s USW
Health, Safety and Environment Conference said they had such programs in
their workplaces.
Still, the memo already made a difference with at least one employer when
USW Local 1159L, at Goodyear Tire
and Rubber in Statesville, N.C., took
the issue to plant management. Several
safety-related discipline cases were
dismissed, and Goodyear soon scrapped
its behavior-based safety program altogether.
“We’re still not where we need to
be,” said Mike Weibel, health and safety
coordinator for the union’s Goodyear
locals. “But this was a big step in the
right direction.”
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
29
U
SW members who make
lined paper and notebooks used by school
students are urging the
U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to save their jobs by
renewing tariffs on unfairly traded
imports from China, India and
Indonesia.
A delegation from Local 101442 at the ACCO Mead Products
plant in Pennsylvania attended a
public hearing before the ITC in
June to show support for extending
duties on imports from the three
countries.
“Our family-supportive jobs are
dependent on continuation of the
five-year-old tariffs on imports of
the school paper and spiral notebooks that we produce for the U.S.
market,’’ Local 10-1442 President
Mitch Heaton said.
The ITC is conducting a fiveyear “sunset review” of duties
placed in 2006 on lined paper
imports that are typically sold as
single and multi-subject notebooks,
composition books and laboratory
notebooks.
The duties were a result of the
first paper trade case the USW
pursued after the 2005 merger with
PACE, and their review is required
under international trade agreements. The ITC will vote Aug. 1.
The USW represents the largest
two of eight producers -- Local
10-1442 at ACCO Mead Products
in Alexandria, Pa., and Local 10488 at the Roaring Springs
Blank Book Co. in Roaring
Springs, Pa.
Since the duties were
imposed on dumped and
subsidized imports, domestic shipment volumes and
capacity utilization have all
improved, allowing USW
members to maintain their jobs,
hours and benefits.
Leeann Foster, an assistant to
International President Leo W.
Gerard, said the duties imposed
five years ago successfully
stabilized the domestic industry.
Removing them this year in the
midst of a fragile economy and
high unemployment
levels, she said, would
restore disaster in the
small communities
where the lined school
paper is produced.
“I cannot stress
enough that revoking the orders would
very likely be nothing
short of disastrous for
our members,” Foster
testified.
USW members at ACCO Mead Products in Alexandria, Pa., attended ITC proceedings.
Shown are Terry McCaulley, kneeling; front row: Chelsea Eichelberger, Carol Wible,
Jackie Hamer, Cheryl Blair, LeeAnn Foster and Penny Goss; back row: ACCO Brands VP
Perry Smith, Sheldon Port, Cliff Hawkins, Greg Uhlom and Shawn Wiser.
30
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
T
he U.S. Commerce Department has
made a preliminary decision to impose stiff new antidumping tariffs on
Chinese solar cells sold in the United
States at artificially low prices.
More than 60 Chinese firms face duties of
31 percent on solar cell exports to the United
States, while all other exports of Chinese solar
cells face tariffs of 250 percent. Solar cells are
the main components of panels used to generate
energy in residential and commercial settings.
The antidumping duties followed the imposition in March of duties ranging from 2.9 percent
to 4.7 percent to counter illegal government
subsidies given to the Chinese industry.
The Obama administration acted on petitions
filed last year by a consortium of seven U.S.
solar manufacturers who founded the Coalition
for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM).
The petitions alleged that Chinese manufacturers were dumping solar cells and panels in
the U.S. market and receiving subsidies that are
illegal under World Trade Organization (WTO)
rules. China has significantly expanded new
energy industries including wind power, solar
power, bio energy and nuclear power.
Just last year, U.S. imports of solar cells
from China, the main components in solar panels, were valued at $3.1 billion, up from $640
million in 2009.
The complaints were supported by the USW,
which has actively pursued trade cases against
China in a variety of industries where U.S.
manufacturing workers are disadvantaged.
International President Leo W. Gerard urged
both the Commerce Department and the ITC to
vote in favor of trade sanctions against Chinese
solar cells.
“Unfortunately, China continues to operate
in a manner that is utterly inconsistent with its
WTO obligations, which come at the expense of
developing our nation’s clean energy sector and
creating and sustaining clean energy jobs for
American workers,” he said.
T
he U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has decided to
continue duties on circular welded
pipe and tube imports from seven
countries – Brazil, India, Korea, Mexico,
Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey.
The six-member commission, which
was required to conduct a five-year review
of the duties under international trade agreements, unanimously found that revoking
them would cause material injury to domestic producers.
The decision was applauded by the
USW and four large U.S. pipe producers –
Allied, TMK IPSCO, U.S. Steel and Wheatland Tube – that employ USW members.
“This will protect the jobs of 1,500
American pipe workers and their employers
from unfairly traded products,’’ International President Leo W. Gerard said.
While the decision focused on workers who make welded pipe, it also affects
USW members who make flat-rolled steel,
the main input in the pipe, as well as union
members who mine iron ore, another critical input.
The ITC was urged to maintain the duties in order to strengthen American steel,
preserve manufacturing, and ensure America’s economic competitiveness.
In testimony attended by USW-represented pipe workers last May, USW legislative counsel Linda Andros told the ITC that
the American producers are world-class
pipe makers who have already lost a third
of the U.S. market to imports.
The domestic industry would be forced
to cut back on shifts and shut down more
lines or even entire plants if the duties were
discarded, Andros testified.
C
hina broke the rules of global
commerce by imposing
antidumping and countervailing duties on more than $200
million worth of electrical steel products
made in the United States, the World
Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled.
The USW praised the ruling and
lauded the resolve of the Obama administration, which petitioned the WTO in
September 2010 to review the legality of
duties China placed on U.S.-made, grainoriented electrical steel.
Grain-oriented electrical steel is
widely used in the cores of high-efficiency transformers, electrical motors
and generators. It is produced in several
U.S. facilities, including ATI/Allegheny
Ludlum in Brackenridge and Bagdad,
Pa., and AK Steel in Butler, Pa., and
Zanesville, Ohio.
International President Leo W. Gerard
said China has for too long attempted to
tilt the playing field for the global steel
trade in their direction.
“In filing this case, the Obama
administration showed that it will stand
strong for American workers, and by
ruling in our favor, the WTO has taken
an important step toward leveling the
playing field for our workers who make
products for export,” Gerard said.
T
he U.S. International Trade
Commission (ITC) unanimously decided to renew
duties on tin- and chromiumcoated steel imports from Japan,
declaring it a necessary protection of
the domestic industry.
“If the duties were allowed to
expire, a flood of tin sheet imports
would have quickly depressed fair
prices, putting at risk the jobs of 3,000
USW-represented steelworkers and
the American industry,” International
President Leo W. Gerard said.
The 6-0 ruling followed testimony
by Mark Glyptis, president of USW
Local 291 at ArcelorMittal’s mill in
Weirton, W.Va. He urged the ITC to
continue the restrictions.
The ruling “helps us secure our
jobs,” Glyptis said. “Tin is a very difficult product to make and we’re very
good at it. We’ve been making tin
for over 100 years, and this gives us a
chance to continue to compete under
fair circumstances,” he said.
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
31
L
eon Lynch, the first AfricanAmerican to serve as an
international vice president of
a major labor union and a lifelong advocate for social justice and civil
rights, died on May 4. He was 76.
Beginning in 1976, Lynch served six
terms as International Vice President
Human Affairs, a tenure that gave him
the distinction of being the longest serving officer in the USW’s 70-year history.
He was appointed to the post when it
was created by the USW’s 18th constitutional convention. He was elected a year
later in 1977 and re-elected every four
years afterward until his retirement in
2006, when he was succeeded by Fred
Redmond.
As International Vice President Human Affairs, Lynch oversaw the union’s
civil rights and human rights efforts.
He also chaired the Container Industry
Conference, where he was in charge
of contract negotiations and the Public
Employees Conference.
At a memorial service at the USW
headquarters in Pittsburgh on May 30,
Redmond said Lynch fought for social
justice and civil and human rights in the
32
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
United States and around the world.
“Today is the celebration of the life
of someone we all came to admire and
respect, the life of someone who had the
courage and conviction to stand up, and
believed the way to the middle class for
working people was through a strong
labor movement,” Redmond said.
Born in Edwards, Miss., Lynch
moved as a child to Indiana with his
family. He learned to play the bass
violin and, as a teenager, performed with
the touring Count Basie Orchestra.
In 1956, after high school, Lynch
began his career as a steelworker at the
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. in East
Chicago. He joined Local 1011 and
quickly became a union activist, serving
on many local committees and as president of the federal credit union.
At the mill, Lynch met co-worker
Joe Jackson, whose sons were musical,
and for a time he played the bass with a
band that backed up the Jackson 5.
But it was the union that became
Lynch’s passion. He joined the USW
staff in 1968, the year Martin Luther
King Jr., was assassinated, and was sent
to Memphis to work with Local 7655,
which represented employees of the
Carrier air conditioner plant there.
Lynch quickly became known as a
leader who could conciliate disputes
between black and white workers. When
the local built its first union hall, its
members put a sign in front that read,
“Leon Lynch Union Hall.”
Active in many political and human
rights organizations, Lynch was
chairman and board member of the A.
Philip Randolph Institute, named in
honor of the late founder and long-time
president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. The institute, founded
in 1965, works for racial equality and
economic justice.
He served as a member of the AFLCIO Executive Council, and represented
the union and the AFL-CIO in international labor matters and at International
Labor Organization conferences.
Lynch was president of the Workers
Defense League, a board member of the
National Endowment for Democracy,
and a member of the Labor Roundtable of the National Black Caucus of
State Legislators. He was an executive
committee member of the Democratic
National Committee, a position International President Leo W. Gerard said that
he cherished.
“The greatest honor we could pay
him is when November comes along this
year, we elect more people than ever to
Democratic Party positions on the state
and national levels,” Gerard said.
Fighting for the right of the disenfranchised to participate in democracy
was a common goal in the work Lynch
did with the various organizations he
represented, Gerard said.
“He was an inspiration to many
people,’’ Gerard said, adding that Lynch
would be upset with current efforts to
suppress voters’ rights. “If Leon was
healthy and if he was here, he would
want to get in front of that fight.”
USW Hosts Meeting of Alcoa Global Unions
U
nion leaders from around the world met at the USW International headquarters in Pittsburgh this spring to discuss increasing global union power at Alcoa.
Participants in the May 3 meeting included unions with members at Alcoa in nine countries, the council that represents Alcoa employees throughout Europe and a global metalworkers’
federation. The meeting was chaired by International Vice President Tom Conway and District 7
Director Jim Robinson.
The union representatives discussed collective bargaining agreements with Alcoa and ways to
coordinate bargaining and campaign activities. They committed to maintaining coordination and
communications in the future.
At one point, union leaders met with top Alcoa executives and discussed the need for ongoing dialogue between the
unions and management at
the global level. The union
leaders also made clear their
support for organizing drives
at non-union Alcoa operations.
The next day, May 4,
the group attended Alcoa’s
annual meeting of shareholders. Director Robinson read a
statement on their behalf.
Bridge Will Use North American Steel
A
deal to use domestic steel in a planned new bridge between Windsor, Canada, and Detroit is
a victory for both U.S. and Canadian workers, the USW contends.
The United States and Canada announced an agreement to build the bridge in July.
The agreement guarantees the project will use steel made solely in the United States and
Canada.
“It’s gratifying that this bridge will be built using steel and other materials made right
here at home, creating jobs for Canadian and American workers,’’ International President Leo
W. Gerard said.
“Unlike the San Francisco Bay Bridge project, where faulty construction, delays and costoverruns proved the foolishness of hiring a Chinese firm to build steel decking and a 52-story support tower and shipping them 6,500 miles from China, we can be proud of how this bridge will be
built,” Gerard added.
Canadian National Director Ken Neumann lobbied Canadian Minister of Transport Denis Lebel
on the importance of using steel made in the United States and Canada. Gerard had similar conversations with the Obama administration and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
Retirees Warned About New VEBA
T
he USW is warning retirees to be cautious about the introduction of a new Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA), as the plan could create risks.
On June 5, a New York bankruptcy court approved the creation of a new VEBA for steel
industry retirees who are eligible for the health care tax credit. This VEBA, known as the “Steel
Retiree VEBA Trust,” is the creation of three trustees and a San Francisco law firm with no prior
connection to the industry or its retirees.
The new VEBA is not sponsored, affiliated or endorsed by the USW. Many potentially eligible
participants are either already covered by a USW-negotiated VEBA or are eligible for the health
coverage tax credit if they are between the ages of 55 and 64, receive a pension from the Pension
Benefit Guarantee Corporation (PBGC) and are not covered by Medicare.
If you are currently covered by a VEBA, closely check the enrollment rules if you are considering a change. Many VEBAs prohibit re-enrollment once you give up your coverage. For example,
VEBAs covering Republic Steel and Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel retirees prohibit retirees who terminate their participation from re-enrolling.
If you drop out of a VEBA that prohibits re-enrollment, you may be barred from re-enrolling if
you become dissatisfied with the “Steel Retirees” VEBA or if that VEBA ceases to exist.
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
33
Wind Tax Credits Create Jobs
T
uring a campaign trip to Ohio in July, President Obama had breakfast
with three members of USW Local 2L at Ann’s Place diner in Akron.
Shown left to right are: Jim DiFalco, Rick Nixon, Obama and Keith
Ross. The three USW members, all Goodyear employees, talked with Obama
about trade, tariffs,
outsourcing and bringing jobs back to America. Nixon, the local’s
recording secretary,
mentioned his son was
getting married the next
day and Obama wrote a
personal message to the
newlyweds.
he USW is calling for an extension of a federal Production Tax
Credit (PTC) for the makers of wind
energy equipment. The credit expires on
Dec. 13.
Uncertainty over the tax credit led
Gamesa, a Spanish wind equipment maker
and wind farm developer, to temporarily
lay off 165 USW-represented workers at
two plants in Pennsylvania.
International President Leo W. Gerard
said the tax credit is vital to creating a
strong market for renewable energy with
clean energy manufacturing jobs.
The PTC helped to establish the U.S.
wind market 20 years ago. When the credit
has expired, as it did in 1999, 2001 and
2003, the U.S. wind market stalled and
jobs were lost. With no orders for 2013,
the industry and its workers are facing
another bust cycle.
The USW believes it is also necessary
for Congress to renew the expired Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit
(48C).
“Without policies like the PTC and
48C, the United States will continue to fall
behind countries like China and Germany,
who are investing significantly into these
sectors and have comprehensive policies
to ensure their growth,” International Vice
President Tom Conway said.
Firm Challenged on Firing Vet and Contract Talks
Union Plus Scholarships
USW Endorses Russia Trade Proposal
T
he USW has announced its support of legislation to ensure Russia upholds
trade commitments made to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The Russian WTO Commitments Verification Act of 2012 would
require the United States Trade Representative to hold Russia accountable —
through annual reporting — for commitments made as part of its WTO entry.
The legislation also would provide the Senate Finance Committee and the House
Ways and Means Committee a means to request enforcement action.
“The United States cannot afford to repeat the devastating impact of China’s
accession to the WTO and its continued refusal to uphold its commitments,”
International President Leo W. Gerard said.
Russian lawmakers voted on July 10 to approve a deal reached last December
that obliges Russia to cut import tariffs and open up key sectors of its economy
to foreign investment, among other obligations. The vote sealed Russia’s entry
into the WTO.
Goodyear Workers Meet Obama
D
U
SW leaders are calling on Carey Salt Co., a subsidiary of Compass
Minerals International Inc., to reinstate decorated veteran Derrick Forestier and settle a new labor agreement.
In January, Carey Salt fired Forestier, a Bronze Star recipient who retired as
a Sergeant First Class after 24 years with the U. S. Army, from its salt mine in
Cote Blanche, La.
Forestier sought time off from work to receive required medical treatment at
a VA facility for a service-connected issue, a condition the company was notified of before hiring him.
Based on information provided to the USW, the
Derrick Forestier
union believes Forestier was fired because management believed his absences to attend VA appointments created workplace problems.
The Cote Blanche mine employs about 100 USW
members, who have been working under the company’s illegally imposed working conditions since
March 31, 2010.
In separate cases, two NLRB administrative law
judges ruled the company committed numerous
unfair labor practices at the Cote Blanche mine. The
company has appealed these decisions. Bargaining
for a new labor agreement is continuing.
34
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
U
nion Plus has awarded $150,000
in scholarships to 129 students
representing 44 unions, including
five student winners whose parents are
USW members.
The 2012 USW winners include Melissa Ertl of Park Falls, Wis., whose father,
John, is a member of Local 2-0445; Kendall Womble of La Porte, Texas, whose
mother, Tandy Deerdoff, is a member of
Local 13-227; Gerhard Steven Jr. of St.
Croix, Virgin Islands, whose father, Gerhard, is a member of Local 8526; Thomas
Sienkiewicz Jr. of Garfield Heights, Ohio,
whose father, Thomas, is a member of
Local 979; and Courtney Cox of Butler,
Ala., whose father, James, is a member of
Local 952.
Students attending a two-year college,
four-year college, graduate school or a
recognized technical or trade school are
eligible. Visit UnionPlus.org/Education for
information and applications.
Visit to Mexico Strengthens Solidarity
T
hreatening to send work abroad is a common tactic to pressure
workers, but steelworkers from District 7 now know that tactic
isn’t so effective when workers on both sides of the border are
united.
In June, five USW Local 903 leaders from Dana Holding Corp. in
Fort Wayne, Ind., learned that lesson firsthand through direct communications with their union brothers and sisters in Mexico.
The group traveled to Tlalnepantla, just outside of Mexico City, to
meet with fellow Dana employees who are members of the National
Union of Mine, Metal, Steel and Related Workers of the Mexican
Republic, also known as Los Mineros, which has an alliance with the
USW. Both Dana plants make vehicle parts including axle carrier assemblies.
“Supporting the standard of living of Mexican workers is good not
just for Mexican workers but also for us,” District 7 Director Jim Robinson said. “It levels the playing field and stops workers from being
pitted against each other based on who will do the work for less.”
The visit helped both Mexican and American Dana employees to
see they have a common cause: fighting for fair contracts that include
job security and decent wages.
“Local 903 feels honored that we had a chance to spend time with
our brothers and sisters from the Mineros,” Local 903 Vice President
Dennis Leazier said. “Our solidarity with them has strengthened.”
USW Kids Get Lesson in Unionism
A
new generation of Steelworkers received a lesson
in labor history at USW International headquarters on April 26 when 43 children aged 3 to 17
participated in Take Your Child to Work Day.
The older children in the group visited Homestead,
Pa., the site of a bitter 1892 conflict between workers
and armed Pinkerton guards at Carnegie Steel. Younger
children watched a performance of the play “Trouble
in the Hen House,” a tale of how farm animals (union
members) stand up to the farmer (company).
Both groups gathered on the steps of the USW headquarters to meet and have their photo taken with International President Leo W. Gerard.
Unite Faces Lockout
U
Court Ruling Vindicates Gómez
T
he Supreme Court of Mexico has restored legal recognition to
Los Mineros leader Napoleon Gómez, a strong international
ally of the USW who has been living in exile in Canada.
The court this May rebuked illegal attacks on workers’ rights by
the Mexican government. Earlier, the Superior Court of Justice of the
Federal District of Mexico dismissed charges against Gómez and other
Los Mineros leaders brought by the government as part of a campaign
of persecution.
“It is, yet again, another vindication of Napoleon Gómez, who
has bravely stood up to an unimaginable campaign of harassment by
government officials,” Canadian National Director Ken Neumann said.
Gómez has been living in exile in Vancouver, Canada, since 2006
after the Mexican government pressed phony fraud charges against
him.
“This is a major victory for Los Mineros and all Mexican workers,” International President Leo W. Gerard said. “It should sound the
death knell for the Mexican government’s vicious and illegal persecution of Napoleon Gómez and Los Mineros.”
nite the Union, the USW’s partner in the global
union Workers Uniting, is facing its first employer lockout in Great Britain in more than 50 years.
After Unite objected to the way in which MayrMelnhof Packaging planned to downsize its Liverpool,
England, plant, the company locked out the entire work
force of 140 last Feb. 18.
During the lockout, the packaging company has
victimized Unite activists, including dismissing four
workers. A closure notice was issued on March 16.
To sign a petition of support for the Unite workers,
visit: afl.salsalabs.com/o/5889/p/dia/action/public.
Redmond: USW Stands with CUT
T
he USW and the Unified Workers’ Central (CUT)
federation of Brazil will continue to work together
to stand up and fight back against greedy corporations and right-wing political leaders who are trying to
take away their rights.
International Vice President Fred Redmond delivered
that message of solidarity to the 2,322 delegates attending the CUT Congress in São Paulo on July 10. CUT
is Brazil’s largest labor federation with more than 3.5
million members.
Redmond underlined the USW’s efforts to build
solidarity with CUT members with common employers
including ArcelorMittal, BASF, and Gerdau. He also
thanked CUT members for their support of USW campaigns against Vale and Rio Tinto.
U S W @ Wo r k • S u m m e r 2 0 1 2
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 _________
Support the Bring Jobs Home Act. See pages 9-11.

pdf - United Steelworkers

Transcription

Similar documents

atu, usw and seiu invite you to a free union night at the movies

bullpine bullpine - Steelworkers Local 1-417

steel voice - USW Local 1999

USW LOCAL 1899 OVER 100 YEARS OF UNBROKEN UNIONISM

USW SOCIAL EVENTS Fishing tournament

Contents - United Steelworkers