Back striking Steelworkers fighting ATI union busting!
Join the picket lines, send support, donations
https://themilitant.com/2021/04/10/back-striking-steelworkers-fighting-ati-union-busting/
BY MALCOLM JARRETT
Vol. 85/No. 15
April 19, 2021
Steelworkers picket at ATI in Lockport, New York. Union members are on
strike in five states.
BUFFALO NEWS/ROBERT KIRKHAM
Steelworkers picket at ATI in Lockport, New York. Union members are on
strike in five states.
WASHINGTON, Pa. — “The concession stand is closed,” was the slogan used
by Steelworkers at Allegheny Technologies Inc. when the bosses locked
them out for seven months in 2015-16. Today some 1,300 United
Steelworkers members are on strike against ATI bosses’ demands to cut
jobs and worsen conditions.
“The concession stand is still closed,” is the message several of them
asked me to report when I visited their picket line here April 5.
I said I would do everything I can to get out the word and build
support for their fight.
“The company says they’re going to cut jobs from 1,300 to 900. They’re
hoping to break the union,” said Carl Decker at another picket line in
Vandergrift April 3. “They take a little bit from each contract. I’ve
been here 20 years. It’s time to stop the bleeding. They’re trying to
take more this time.”
Decker said he had to transfer to Vandergrift from a plant in Indiana
after it closed. Other strikers, he pointed out, were facing a third
round of job cuts, having moved twice previously from shuttered ATI
plants. The company is pushing to close a production line in
Brackenridge and plants in Connecticut and Ohio.
At the picket line at the Brackenridge plant strikers explained that one
key issue in their strike is the company’s demands to increase the
number of tiers for pay, and cut retirement and health care benefits.
Rob Baker, with seven years in the mill; Craig Hrivak, with 14 years;
and Zach Walker, with only two years, all work in the same department.
Walker is currently laid off.
“You have three divides right here,” Baker said, “Craig is a legacy guy,
I have the pension but no option, and Zach is on the 401(k) and lower
pay.” Walker will get no health care after retirement.
“These tiers create a divide between working people,” Walker said.
ATI has nine plants where workers are on strike — across Connecticut,
Massachusetts, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Company spokeswoman Natalie Gillespie defended the health care
concessions bosses are seeking in the March 31 Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review. “Employees at our competitors — again, including those
represented by the USW — pay premiums, giving them a competitive
advantage over us,” she complained.
“ATI will continue operations by using nonunion employees and temporary
replacement employees,” Gillespie said. She argued the union had
rejected the contract because it was not “rich enough” for union members.
“When you haven’t gotten a raise in seven years, you’ve got to do what’s
right,” Dave Brestensky, an electrical technician on strike at the
Brackenridge plant, told the Review. At the Vandergrift picket line
horns never stopped honking as cars passed by. Some drivers stopped to
talk to strikers. At the Washington plant, coal miners have visited the
pickets and sent 20 pizzas to feed them.
At the Walmart where I work a couple of workers helped get two cakes
delivered. One had the slogan, “This concession stand is STILL closed”
and the other had, “These Walmart workers stand with ATI workers.”
Organize to get the word out about the strike, join the picket line and
build solidarity in your union and community. You can contact USW Local
1196 at 1080 Brackenridge Ave., Brackenridge, PA 15014, and at
unionhall1196@xxxxxxxxx. USW Local 7139 is at 1505 Jefferson Ave.,
Washington, PA 15301.
Malcolm Jarrett is the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Pittsburgh
mayor. Campaign supporters Tony Lane and Ruth Robinett contributed to
this article.
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Quebec state workers fight gov’t attacks on unions, public services
MONTREAL — Under the slogan, “Sound the alarm for public services,” over
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Rally marks five weeks of bus drivers strike in Manchester
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Join in building solidarity for today’s labor battles!
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On the Picket Line
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Carl Sagan “It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance
between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all
hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great
openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some
tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes,
whichever one it is, you’re in deep trouble. If you are only skeptical,
then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new.
You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the
world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now
and then, maybe once in a hundred cases, a new idea turns out to be on
the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being
skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and
either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and
progress. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility
and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot
distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones.” ― Carl Sagan
