Steelworkers receive pamphlet downplaying key contract provisions
After more than a month of waiting, Sparrows Point employees have received a 22-page pamphlet from the United Steelworkers union (USW) applauding its proposed labor contract with RG Steel and urging members to ratify the pact via mail-in ballot.
The pamphlet does not contain the actual contract language, but instead is a summary of the contract, replete with charts and color photographs of steelworkers.
The document skirts around many of the controversial terms that have sparked hundreds of comments – mostly critical – by steelworkers in The Brew.
For example, the contract language gives RG Steel the right to impose 12-hour shifts without employee consent. The summary does not mention this fact, but instead tells membership that “AWS [Alternative Work Schedules] will not be implemented without a meaningful plan as to how management believes the schedules will lead to the successful achievement of the operating plan.”
Cover of contract summary mailed to steelworkers.
Additional contract language (see here) eliminates all incentive pay for six months. The summary mailed to steelworkers insists that “appropriate interim rates will be implemented to protect earnings” during the six-month interval.
The Brew published another side agreement that gives RG Steel the right to review all job assignments, change seniority rules, alter pay grades and require employees to assist each other across craft lines (see “Workplace Restructuring and Productivity” here).
The summary does not mention this sweeping agreement, signed by chief USW negotiator David McCall on Jan. 3, 2011, but never publicly disclosed.
McCall hammered out the contract as part of the union’s effort to force Russian-based Severstal to sell the Sparrows Point, Wheeling and Warren steel facilities. The USW settled on the Renco Group, whose owner, Ira Rennert, once owned the Warren plant, and a three-way agreement was reached last month.
“Renco is an American company,” the summary report said. “We know that both the owner and the CEO are committed to making high-quality steel in the United States, and we are confident that with their support, we have the opportunity to make our plants once again profitable and sustainable.”
A mail-in ballot was included in the summary report.
Steelworkers are asked to mark “Yes” or “No” to the question – “I accept the 2011 settlement agreement negotiated between the USW and RG Steel” – and mail the ballot to union headquarters in Pittsburgh.
Ballots received by May 5 will be counted by local union presidents and others, and the results announced.