Here's a great article of how the Steelworkers union and their current members are helping their members in these tough times.
Steelworkers union to distribute profit-sharing money to laid-off members
Friday, February 13, 2009
By Len Boselovic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Union workers at U.S. Steel Corp. will give up about $120 of their fourth-quarter profit-sharing payment, distributing the money to more than 4,000 of their colleagues who were laid off because of dismal conditions in the industry.
The gesture means the laid-off workers will get payments equal to what they would have received had they been on the job for the entire quarter, said United Steelworkers union Vice President Tom Conway, who chairs the union bargaining committee in negotiations with U.S. Steel. Mr. Conway proposed the plan and said it was supported by presidents of union locals at U.S. Steel plants.
"We've got 4,000 members on the street, and this will be meaningful to them," Mr. Conway said. "We think it's the right thing to do."
They will be joined on the unemployment line by another 1,200 workers at U.S. Steel's operations in Lone Star, Texas. The company announced yesterday that it was temporarily idling the tubular products plant. Spokesman John Armstrong said about 800 union and 400 nonunion workers were employed at the plant. They will be called back based on order levels, he said.
U.S. Steel laid off 675 union workers at plants in the United States and Canada in mid-November, then laid off another 3,500 union workers three weeks later, when it idled steel plants near Detroit and St. Louis and an iron ore plant in Minnesota.
Last week, it said 500 nonunion workers had accepted early-retirement offers.
Many of the union workers who lost their jobs don't qualify for supplemental unemployment benefits because they have not been on the job for at least three years, Mr. Conway said.
The extra money "can help with their mortgage, rent or other daily living expenses during these difficult economic times," Mr. Conway wrote in a Feb. 10 e-mail to local presidents and other USW officials.
Profit-sharing payments are determined by an hourly rate multiplied by the number of hours a USW member worked during the quarter, typically 480 for full-time employees. U.S. Steel has not calculated the hourly rate yet. Mr. Conway said that based on his estimate of what it will be, reducing the rate by about 25 cents an hour -- or $120 for each worker currently on the job -- would allow those laid off to receive as much as those who worked the whole quarter.
Mr. Conway expects to get the final profit-sharing figure from U.S. Steel in a few days. He came up with the idea after concluding that the laid-off workers may not be called back for some time.
U.S. steel production fell 54 percent in December, and domestic mills are currently operating at 45 percent of capacity vs. 92 percent a year ago.
"I haven't ever seen anything like this," Mr. Conway said. "The way this industry is looking now, I won't have this [profit sharing] problem for a few quarters."
Len Boselovic can be reached at
[email protected] or 412-263-1941.
First published on February 13, 2009 at 12:00 am
