October 4, 2011 - No. 7

40th General Ontario Election

A Crucial Question to Ask: Do Politicians Stand
with the People or the Monopolies?

GM
• Autoworkers Must Heed Threats to Their Pensions and Take Appropriate Action to Defend Their Rights

The People Versus U.S. Steel
• U.S. Steel Executives Attack and Badmouth Steelworkers and Hamilton Works - K.C. Adams
• Workers' Outraged at Company's Refusal to Negotiate in Good Faith
• Misleading Talk about "Final Offers" and "Walking Out of Negotiations" - Local 1005 USW
• Misleading Company "Highlights" - Interview, Rolf Gerstenberger, President, Local 1005 USW

GM

Autoworkers Must Heed Threats to Their Pensions and Take Appropriate Action to Defend Their Rights

Threats to the security of GM pensions in the U.S. must be taken seriously in Canada. The onslaught on retired autoworker health care benefits began in the U.S. and soon moved north. GM executives made it clear during their campaign to renege on contracted health care benefits that they hold no responsibility for any Canadian post-employment benefits including pensions. GM executives in their class action lawsuit against retirees in Ontario and Quebec went so far as to declare that they have the right "to unilaterally terminate" any post-employment benefit they consider detrimental to the U.S. monopoly's viability.

The recently ratified GM/UAW collective agreement contains an addendum entitled: "Pension De-Risk Consideration: 2011 UAW-GM Supplemental Agreement Exhibit A (Pension Plan)."

The letter states in part, "The parties agreed that the national parties may mutually agree during the term of this agreement to amend the [pension] plan to add retirement options for some or all existing retirees to help GM reduce the volatility and risk related to the plan and benefit existing retirees by providing an additional voluntary option."

This language replicates that used to destroy the system of post-employment health care benefits, which had become for retirees a legal collective claim on GM revenue. GM unilaterally negated retirees claim to secure health care with its introduction of a Health Care Trust (HCT), which once established is no longer funded from company revenue. Retirees did not agree or vote to have their health care benefits reduced and put into an HCT. The HCT was simply declared a necessary part of GM's anti-worker anti-social restructuring "to reduce the volatility and risk of the existing plan and make the company viable." No alternative was discussed or allowed to be discussed. GM, with the active instigation of governments, simply dictated the destruction of the existing contracted health care obligation. Retirees did not agree or vote to destroy the contracted health care benefit system and replace it with the HCT that effectively reduces their benefits. GM, the governments and courts forcibly introduced the HCT as part of GM's anti-worker anti-social restructuring in 2009 and are now putting it into practice.

The current GM/UAW letter "to amend the [pension] plan" implies that GM has the right to change the pension system without the agreement of the retirees who no longer can vote for or against collective agreements. GM says it has the right "to unilaterally terminate" any post-retirement benefit and the letter "Pension De-Risk" reiterates this belief. The fact that it is couched in vague terms such as "voluntary options" and "mutually agree" is meant to fool the gullible and give GM a blank cheque.

GM has no right to change the pension system without the conscious participation and informed consent of the retirees. However, retirees can only make their public right to a say in the security of their pensions a reality through restricting GM's monopoly right to change unilaterally their pension plan. No other force than a united determined opposition by retirees themselves can stop GM's monopoly right "to add retirement options for some or all existing retirees to help GM," as the letter states.

The courts will not help workers as they have already ruled that GM has the right "to unilaterally terminate" health care benefits and replace them with the HCT. Governments have refused to help and hold GM to account for unilaterally breaking contracted obligations. Quite the opposite. The Ontario, federal and U.S. governments egged on GM to break its commitments to retirees under the hoax of an anti-worker anti-social restructuring to make the monopoly viable through concessions and bailouts using public money.

Those governments have consistently refused to introduce comprehensive public health care coverage for all members of society and have blocked any progressive movement towards a universal retirement system that guarantees workers the security of the standard of living they fought for and acquired during their active working lives funded from a government claim on the collective wealth workers produce annually. It is the height of narrow self-serving duplicity and capital-centred ignorance that governments, courts and the monopolies insist that tearing down the standard of living of the working class is a solution to the general economic crisis or the particular problems of a company. To argue and carry out in practice that the way a monopoly can be viable is by negating the rights of its workers, lowering their standard of living, wrecking the means of production and paying the rich with public money reflect a system that needs a fundamental change and new direction. Concessions are not solutions! Stop paying the rich! Manufacturing yes! Nation-wrecking no!

GM's threat to retirees' pensions in the U.S. must be taken seriously in Canada. Actions with analysis should be organized at once to tell GM, the other auto monopolies and governments that these attempts to undermine the security of autoworkers' pensions will be met with determined resistance and will not pass!

Autoworker retirees do not want "voluntary options"; they want their pension plans made whole, solvent and secure now! That is the law, that is GM's contracted obligation and that is the inalienable public right of autoworkers!

Defend the Pensions We Have!
Fight for Pensions for All!
Monopoly Right No! Public Right Yes!

The People Versus U.S. Steel

U.S. Steel Executives Attack and Badmouth Steelworkers and Hamilton Works

- K.C. Adams -

U.S. Steel executives in their campaign to extort concessions from Local 1005 members at Hamilton Works constantly badmouth steelworkers, their union Local 1005 USW and the facility, which they threaten to close. In their latest outburst contained in yet another "final offer" to Local 1005 members, or more properly stated their latest "refusal to bargain," certain executives denounce Hamilton Works as "a severely challenged facility" that "has sustained massive losses" since U.S. Steel bought it. Of course, the executives fail to mention that the mill, in contravention of the Investment Canada Act (ICA), has been mostly shut down or run at reduced capacity since they seized control in 2007. In fact, the wrecking of production and employment at both Hamilton Works and Lake Erie Works has been so severe that the federal government charged U.S. Steel with breaking its production and employment commitments under the ICA.

Reading the disparaging comments and threats against the plant's existence, one wonders why U.S. Steel executives bought Stelco in the first place. The purchase price in 2007 was not cheap as it paid over one billion dollars in cash, and assumed debt and the responsibility for four pension plans for a total of around $2 billion. Compare this with the current paltry $3 billion stock market evaluation of the entire U.S. Steel equity, which includes dozens of mills, coal and iron ore mines and other facilities and property in North and South America and Europe. Quite a remarkable situation considering U.S. Steel executives' apparent disdain for Hamilton Works. If their hatred is not just for show then why are they not willing to take responsibility for an apparent miscalculation in buying Stelco in the first place and do the honourable thing, sell Stelco to another monopoly or the government for at least the amount it must immediately put into the pension plans, leave Canada with a broken heart and resign en masse?

First, to set the record straight, Hamilton Works is not some dilapidated pre-war steel mill. It is a modern facility known for producing high quality slabs and galvanized steel. The mill's productivity is not far behind other mills as it has been upgraded many times with about one quarter of the number of steelworkers required to produce the same quantity and quality of steel it produced just twenty years ago. The Hamilton mill, located in Southern Ontario close to Toronto has a superb Lake Ontario port capable of handling large lake carriers, which can travel out the St. Lawrence Seaway to open sea or deeper into the interior of the continent. Like any means of production it needs constant work, which unfortunately U.S. Steel is not willing to do. Really, the badmouthing is based on something other than the actual and potential capacity of the mill.

Hamilton Works has a great history of producing wealth for the community and Canadian economy for over a century. Local 1005 USW steelworkers fought for a Canadian standard of living and retirement. The hatred of the U.S. executives is not for the mill per se but the standard of living of steelworkers, especially their defined-benefit pension and the 9,000 retirees and their determination to defend their rights and the rights of all. The U.S. executives loath to see added-value produced by steelworkers "diverted" into the four pension plans or Canadian standard wages. They want the wealth for themselves; they want to "transfer" the value produced in Canada down to the U.S. and their own pockets.

But U.S. Steel CEO Surma and other executives knew of the existence of the four pension plans and the Canadian standard wages and benefits before they bought the mill in 2007. They did their due diligence and saw for themselves the pension arrangement with the Ontario government and the required funding to make the plans whole and solvent. They also know that pension fund investments are very risky and subject to reversals as experienced in 2008 and even this year. So why would they buy Stelco and then almost immediately start badmouthing their purchase and begin wrecking its active productive capacity?

Two reasons come to mind:

1) As propaganda to extort concessions from steelworkers, especially to destroy the pension plans and if possible the will of steelworkers to defend themselves. The propaganda of "challenged facilities" was accompanied with actual shutdowns of production and then an eight-month lock-out at Lake Erie Works to extort the destruction of the defined-benefit pension plan. They then focussed on Hamilton Works by unilaterally stopping the indexing of pension benefits, idling the blast furnace, fabricating a phony lock-out without completing the environmental work it had promised City Council, refusing to negotiate with Local 1005 while issuing "final offer" after "final offer" with escalating slavish demands, and constantly threatening in investment and media circles to close Hamilton Works for good.

2) But the first reason to badmouth Hamilton Works to extort concessions only arises after the purchase. What was going through their minds before the purchase if they truly believed the deal was so bad and they should not buy Stelco at any price? Of course, they never for a second thought it was a bad purchase. Steel prices and stock prices were soaring in 2007 and it looked as if the economy was on an extended boom. The largest steel monopoly in the world ArcelorMittal was buying every mill it could and so was the upstart Russian monopoly OAO Severstal, which appeared to want Stelco as a big wedge into the North American market. Just this week the pro-monopoly business newspaper the Globe and Mail said, "Analysts raised the question Wednesday of why U.S. Steel bought Stelco in 2007 amid a global steel industry consolidation. The most plausible answer, the analysts said, is that the Pittsburgh-based giant wanted to keep Stelco out of the hands of Russian steel maker OAO Severstal, which had bought Rouge Steel Inc., in Dearborn, Mich., earlier and was looking to expand its operations in the Great Lakes basin."

This would not be the first time a monopoly bought a facility to prevent a competitor from acquiring it and then shut the purchased asset down to concentrate production or distribution in one of its existing facilities.

For steelworkers, U.S. Steel's badmouthing, extortion and wrecking is one thing but the fact that none of the political parties in power in Ontario and federally stands up to these foreign monopolies and defends our productive facilities, assets and people are matters of great concern. We are now in the midst of an Ontario election. The anti-social antics of U.S. Steel in shutting down Hamilton Works, which is an important means of producing wealth for the people of Ontario, the threats to close it completely and the campaign of extortion to wreck the pensions and way of life of steelworkers are election issues that should be widely discussed. The working class polity wants to know where potential members of the Legislative Assembly stand on this and other monopoly attacks on the working class and our productive assets.

Do you stand with public right and the people of Ontario or do you stand with monopoly right and those owners of capital who are extorting Ontario workers for concessions and wrecking our productive facilities? Canadians demand their representatives stand with them as one for public right and against monopoly right. This means speaking out and concretely standing as one against U.S. Steel's extortion of Hamilton steelworkers and the wrecking of Hamilton Works.

Workers' Outraged at Company's
Refusal to Negotiate in Good Faith

Information Update, the news bulletin of Local 1005 USW, reports that well over 1,000 active members of Local 1005 USW and retirees filled the hall where the September 29 Information Meeting on the status of contract talks with U.S. Steel was held. They received a report on the latest developments from President Rolf Gerstenberger, with additional presentations by other members of the Local's Negotiating Committee Jake Lombardo, Tony McLaughlin and Gary Howe.

The workers applauded the Negotiating Committee's rejection of the company's refusal to negotiate and the union's refusal to dignify the company's arrogant demand for an answer to what it called its "offer" with a response.

The meeting expressed what can only be called universal outrage at the company's refusal to negotiate and to the slave clause it arrogantly expected the workers to endorse with open arms. Not one worker got up to say they could support this offensive deal, let alone the attempt to shove it down their throats. The view repeatedly expressed was that the union should not dignify this "full and final offer" with a vote while another view said that it could be voted on so as to turn it down one hundred percent!

(Information Update #35, October 3, 2011, www.uswa1005.ca)

Misleading Talk about "Final Offers" and
"Walking Out of Negotiations"

- Local 1005 USW -

News reports on the state of contract talks between Local 1005 USW and U.S. Steel have it all wrong and totally miss the point when they write that Local 1005 walked out of contract negotiations with U.S. Steel. In an article entitled "Union walks out on steely talks," Spec journalist Steve "Benedict" Arnold writes: "Local 1005 negotiators walked out of talks seeking an end to the bitter 10-month lockout at U.S. Steel." The article takes its cue from the letter U.S. Steel sent out to all employees. U.S. Steel declares that "Their [the Union's] actions made it clear that a negotiated end to the labour dispute is not in sight." To confirm the statement, Benedict quotes the spokesperson for U.S. Steel Canada, Trevor Harris. "Trevor Harris confirmed that the union walked out of the Friday negotiations," Benedict intones.

The media also have it all wrong when they quote the company saying it made a final offer. The Spec article quotes U.S. Steel's September 23 letter to employees which states,"The Company made a final proposal for a new collective agreement to your Union leadership." The Spec article repeats the company line that the "final offer" is "more than fair given Hamilton's performance and the significant challenges ahead."

This is all silly talk. First of all the company has never made any offer. It has dictated terms and dictated the choices the union has - accept, reject, stay neutral. To call this "an offer," final or otherwise, good or bad, is to be totally contemptuous of language because it was not an "offer." To speak of this dictate as an "offer" is also to confound the very conception of what constitutes negotiations or the meaning of a process of "labour relations."

Since last July, the company has refused to negotiate. It has presented fiats. In November it demanded the Union take this fiat to a vote and declared that refusal to do so showed the Union leadership was on an ideological crusade. Now, eleven months later, the Company has degenerated further. It has presented a new fiat and given the union the choice to accept it, reject it or stay neutral!!!

Why do the media persist in repeating the Company propaganda by calling these fiats "offers" and saying the Union walked out of negotiations? This failure of the media to tell the truth and discern fact from fiction is really unfortunate since it merely serves to lower their prestige. Their reporting, besides giving a general impression that things are not going well between Local 1005 and U.S. Steel, fails to even bring out the relevant facts.

Firstly, if the term "final offer" is to be used, then the question comes how do you walk out of negotiations AFTER a "final offer" has been presented to you? What negotiations are you walking out of?

Secondly, to suggest that U.S. Steel has any labour relations with Local 1005 is also silly talk unless, of course, attempts to establish a slave/master relationship are to be called labour relations! Far from there being any "labour relations," there is a company attempt to establish its dictatorship and a union refusal to accept such a thing. Either the company negotiates in good faith and recognizes the union as an equal partner in negotiations, or the company will continue to flap its gums in the wind.

It is truly unfortunate that this creates a situation in which everyone else has to suffer which is why active and retired members organized by Local 1005 are trying to address what to do about that. Even the media had to acknowledge that workers were outraged by the Company's refusal to negotiate and that if their fiat went to a vote it would be defeated 100 per cent.

However, the very idea that a non-negotiated fiat should be put to a vote is itself a crazy company fantasy. Union members are not as eager to establish master/slave relations at Hamilton Works as is U.S. Steel!

We seriously propose that the media learn what reporting is all about instead of becoming a part of U.S. Steel's disinformation campaign. The union did not walk out on any negotiations because there were no negotiations. It refused to succumb to yet another of U.S. Steel's attempts to impose a dictatorship at Hamilton Works. Nothing good will come out of conciliating with U.S. Steel's arrogant treatment of Canadian steelworkers and their community.

As we said, we think it is high time the media did their homework and stopped reporting things in a manner that makes no sense.

What the Workers Had to Say

"We definitely shouldn't take this to a vote, it would acknowledge it as a legitimate contract offer by the company."

"It is an insult."

"U.S. Steel has shown once again that they have no interest in negotiating."

"The union moved off of their two main positions in the interest of getting a deal that it could recommend. How did U.S. Steel respond? It thought it could kick us in the teeth. Well, think again U.S. Steel."

"We challenged U.S. Steel to negotiate once we gave up on the indexing and the DB plan for new hires. They just humoured us and then handed us a final offer that they had with them before the negotiating session even began. What a laugh!"

"I personally am one of the so-called unslots, along with some 300 others. We are to be given the pleasure of working for 26 weeks at a Level Two pay scale, in my case down from a Level Five, in the case of others down from a Level Four, and during that time I am to do whatever the company says without any union protection whatsoever. If I don't jump high enough or quick enough, then I won't get the overtime I will require to get EI after the 26 weeks. Who are we kidding here?"

"It is one thing to see these incredibly ugly and incredibly wealthy American businessmen think they can lord it over us like this, but for their Canadian lawyer to act as their stooge is really beyond belief."

"The way this slave clause is written we can expect two-tier wages before you know it."

"I never thought I would see the day when some foreign company could come here and try to turn Hamilton Works into a Walmart. 'Show a good attitude Walmart style or I won't give you overtime and you won't get enough hours to qualify for EI.' 'Smile for the camera now! My, I don't think you did that nicely enough. Now, try again. Oh, too bad, you won't get any overtime now. You have only yourself to blame, you know. You should have smiled nicely when I told you to."

"I think that U.S. Steel actually thought we would all jump for glee when we received their slavery clause. It is hard to fathom what world they think they live in."

(Information Update #35, October 3, 2011, www.uswa1005.ca)

Misleading Company "Highlights"

- Interview, Rolf Gerstenberger, President, Local 1005 USW -

The Marxist-Leninist: The letter U.S. Steel sent to members September 29 contained the "highlights" of what it called its "final offer." What was it covering up?

Rolf Gerstenberger: Not unexpectedly and not very well, these "highlights" sought to make the offer look like a very good deal the workers could not afford to turn down. One of the "highlights" was the addition of what the workers are calling "the slave clause." The slave clause is an offer of 26 weeks of 32 hours per week. The "highlights" omits to mention that it is on condition workers agree to take Level 2 wages, down from Level 4 and Level 5, and do whatever work the company assigns, whenever the company assigns it without question or recourse to any union protection or grievance.

TML: One question that immediately comes to mind is if the company wants these workers in production then why not just give the 26-32 hour weeks and leave it at that.

RG: Yes, that is what we said. For the past fifty years, protocols have been worked out between the company and the union to regulate everything to do with how jobs are assigned inside the plant and what can and cannot be done. This has given rise to steelworkers who stand second to none on the world scale.

All these protocols are written down in the contracts signed between the company and Local 1005 through the years. Any changes are negotiated but here we are faced with a company decree that all those protocols are to be suspended. The company is to be permitted to do whatever it pleases.

TML: Why the addition of the slave clause? What is the company up to?

RG: We think this is a good question. What is the company up to?

In the first version of its most recent fiat before the inclusion of the slave clause, it had the workforce coming in for a one or two week training period including health and safety training. It said half of the workers returning to work would be "unslotted" and laid off after their training. The fiat declared the creation of a $2 million SUB (Supplementary Unemployment Benefit) fund so that the laid-off workers could draw $200 a week.

First, this mass layoff after one or two weeks proves that the lockout of Local 1005 is a phony labour dispute. The company simply laid everyone off last November and called it a lockout. But in any case, we told the company that its proposal was unacceptable. How did it expect the workers to agree to be laid off in exchange for a signing bonus and $200 a week SUB? We told the company that everyone knows these workers are no longer drawing Employment Insurance and yet you expect them to sit there on a $200 a week retainer waiting for you to call them in.

When it presented its next fiat, the company responded that it had heard (from its informants at the membership and information meetings) that the workers were not too happy with this and wanted a guarantee of enough work to at least qualify for EI again. This is not in fact what the workers said but the company is just told by informants what it wants to hear and it only hears what it wants to hear. A very foolish way of doing business if you ask me but when you think you are the cock at the top of the dung heap, you think nothing matters except what you want. In any case, the company responded by putting in this slave clause.

TML: Offering 26 weeks seems geared to some idea that this is what it takes to qualify for EI. Isn't this very cynical, especially since it takes about 1800 hours to qualify for full EI?! Besides, isn't U.S. Steel abusing the Canadian Employment Insurance system by laying off workers in 26 weeks and telling them to live off the public system?

RG: Yes, it is abusive. Governments should hold U.S. Steel to account. But who knows what makes these U.S. Steel executives tick. All we know is that besides anything else they are very uncouth, totally oblivious of Canadian culture and sensibilities. In this case, U.S. Steel is saying: So you did not want to live on a $200 a week retainer. Fine. We will give you work for 26 weeks. In exchange, you will have to work at Level 2 wages and do whatever we say during that period without union protection. Then after 26 weeks, we are entitled to lay you off and that is that. Of course, all this is beside the fact that they refuse to restart the blast furnace and allow us to produce steel and wealth for the economy and community.

The suggestion is that with overtime, workers will qualify for some minimum EI and they should thank the company for its largesse d'esprit because Hamilton Works is "very challenged" and the company is doing them a big favour.

TML: You can't be more backward than that. "You are my slave and should be thankful for the fact that I agree to feed you for a time."

RG: Yes, the workers were outraged. To say it went over like a lead balloon is an understatement. They were furious. The company called this a very good deal given how "challenged" it says Hamilton Works is. The workers are supposed to feel very happy about this offer and jump at the chance.

TML: As we understand it, this also sets the precedent for the workers to take a big pay cut. Can you elaborate on this?

RG: Several hundred workers would work for six months at Level 2, when the average rate in the plant is Level 4 or Level 5. The difference would be about $4000 to $6000 a year in lost wages. The real danger is that Level 2 could become permanent for these so-called unslotted workers, in fact, a two tier wage system.

TML: We understand you tried to negotiate and the company simply turned you down.

RG: We asked for discussion. We said if you want the workers to give up indexing on pensions and not give new hires a defined benefit pension plan, what are you willing to give so that we can recommend doing this to our members.

There are some very serious issues, such as language that would provide benefits for these same new hires when they retire because post-employment benefits are presently linked to the pensions. We had a list of some twelve important issues the workers wanted discussed.

The company said, nope. Here is the final offer. Your choice is to tell us whether you are going to accept or reject it or remain neutral. That is all they had to say in response to our offer and twelve important issues. One of them just scoffed and called them "twelve mistakes."

We remained calm despite the provocation. We said that we did not agree with this manner of conducting talks and that as far as their question goes it does not deserve an answer. And we left.

So, as you can see, they made it very clear there are no negotiations only fiats. For them to say we walked out of negotiations is silly talk, as our Union newsletter pointed out earlier today. There were no negotiations, no discussions, no talks.

TML: It was recently reported that U.S. Steel, or "USX" as it is listed, is one of the 5 worst performing stocks on the New York stock exchange. Why is it doing so badly?

RG: It could be a number of things. Other steel companies are making all kinds of announcements about expansions here, contracts there so what's wrong with U.S. Steel? Their executives have now sunk so low as to try to convince Hamilton Steelworkers that Hamilton Works is "severely challenged" and could be worth nothing. Workers are saying, "No wonder it is fifth to last on the stock market index; it has such a morbid preoccupation with its own demise." They are asking, "If this is the case that Hamilton Works is worth nothing then why did U.S. Steel buy it and Lake Erie for $1.1 billion?" More importantly, they are saying, "Been there, done that" because those types of words they are using to badmouth Hamilton Works are precisely how the old Stelco executives defined the company before it went under bankruptcy protection and those in control manipulated the situation to make a Big Score for Brookfield and a few others.

It is all to fool the gullible. Hamilton Works is worth what it is worth; it has great productive capacity in its own right and there is a good market out there for what it produces. Why U.S. Steel wants to tank it or badmouth it is a real question. We have the experience that when the former Stelco wanted to prove that it qualified for protection under the Company Creditors' Arrangement Act, to get rid of all its creditors and shareholders and reorganize to make the big score, it presented Hamilton Works as worth nothing. Then after having the court go along with its scam and lining up all its ducks in a row, it declared the same allegedly worthless company magically worth $1.1 billion! And that was a clear $1.1 billion for the hucksters because U.S. Steel assumed all outstanding debt and employee obligations such as the four pension plans.

There is also talk in business circles about a sale of U.S. Steel, in which case this low valuation of not only Hamilton Works but of U.S. Steel as a whole -- they say its entire assets add up now according to the stock market to only $4 billion -- is a typical method of directors setting themselves up for a big score, where they buy out the existing shares or some such scam and then suddenly the new U.S. Steel or merged company is worth ten times as much. It is a totally exposed, worn out little hat trick, which if the directors think they can pull it off, and make an attempt, will only deepen the crisis of credibility facing the Obama administration. U.S. Steel CEO John Surma is on Obama's Buy American Committee, one of the CEO's who is dictating how the administration should intervene in the economy to guarantee that monopolies such as U.S. Steel make a killing while everyone else lines up on bread lines.

TML: Already Globe and Mail journalist Greg Keenan mentioned unnamed analysts questioning what US Steel is up to.

RG: Yes. Keenan said analysts are asking why U.S. Steel bought Hamilton Works if all it is doing is cratering it. We also know of analysts who are asking the same thing. But one thing is for sure, these people in control do not do anything without a master plan to serve their narrow interests.

TML: Is U.S. Steel interested in settling the contract?

RG: It might be in the sense that the present lockout is costing it $40 million a quarter; at least that is what it says. Its so-called offer was to put the coke oven and Z-line workers back to work while others would be the so-called unslotted. Steelworkers are now to be divided into slotted and unslotted! It doesn't take a great imagination to know that it is cheaper for U.S. Steel to produce coke using steelworkers rather than keeping management in the plant 24 hours a day, one week in and one week out, and paying bricklayers $5,000 a week to do a few hours work. We can't imagine that local management is too happy about being left with this regime for another six months and more. Money can't buy everything and everyone. Plus it is possible that the bricklayers are being a bit more careful about doing steelworker jobs since they were taken to task for scabbing. This means that management staff has to do the real dirty jobs like sides, lids and coal handling. They can't be too happy about that for much longer.

Then there is the issue of work required on the treatment plant. Obviously, U.S. Steel would like to go to the City and say the lockout is over and receive an extension while the contracted company completes the work that was halted with the phoney lockout. Maybe this is why it offered 26 weeks to the so-called unslotted workers. The company possibly figures that once the treatment plant is fixed it can lay off all the "unslotted" and just get on with the lucrative job of producing coke and polluting Hamilton with impunity.

Sure, it would like the lockout to be over so long as it gets its cake and eats it too.

TML: What will it do now that the union refused to "accept, reject or stay neutral?"

RG: Who knows? It has threatened to hot idle the coke ovens, cold idle the coke ovens, get the treatment plant company to cross the picket lines, get more injunctions, keep us out for two more years .

It really needs an exit strategy because to keep cutting off its own nose to spite its face does not seem like a sustainable activity. We tried to give them one but they turned it down.

One thing is for sure. Hamilton steelworkers will not go gentle into that good night.*

TML: Thank you very much.

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