USW workers at ATI plan to strike after failed negotiations
Barring a last-minute breakthrough, roughly 1,300 workers at Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Technologies Inc. represented by the United Steelworkers union plan to strike starting Tuesday at 7 a.m. after negotiators failed to reach a contract settlement.
USW International Vice President David McCall, who chairs the talks, accused the metals giant of unfair labor practices and trying to force workers into accepting unnecessary concessions.
“After years of loyalty, hard work and sacrifice, workers deserve more respect and consideration than ATI has shown at the table,” Mr. McCall said in a statement Friday. “We will continue to bargain in good faith, and we strongly urge ATI to start doing the same.”
A walkout would affect workers at nine locations. They include Brackenridge, Latrobe, Natrona Heights, Vandergrift and Washington, Pa., as well as Lockport, N.Y.; Louisville, Ohio; New Bedford, Mass.; and Waterbury, Conn.
“Allegheny Technologies Inc. is incredibly disappointed that our employees represented under the USW master contract have elected to strike,” spokeswoman Natalie Gillespie said in an email Friday. “Our latest proposal increases wages and continues premium-free health care for our employees, at a time when we are losing money, following one of the worst years in company history.”
“We are committed to rewarding our people’s hard work,” she added. “At the same time, we need to have a competitive cost structure that supports this business and our investment for the long term.”
Under the company’s current offer, union workers would maintain premium-free health care coverage for the first three years of the fouryear contract, Ms. Gillespie said. In 2024, monthly premiums would be $40 per person, or $125 per family, or employees could opt for a premium-free version of the plan, she said.
“We are insistent on introducing health care premiums by 2024. All other employees at ATI ... pay premiums for their coverage,” Ms. Gillespie said.
The company has proposed wage increases totaling 9% over the four years of the contract, plus a lump sum payment of $4,000 the first year.
Both sides had agreed to a oneyear contract extension in March last year to focus on the pandemic. That extension expired Feb. 28.
A strike at ATI would be the first since a 69-day work stoppage in 1994.
ATI reported a loss of $1.6 billion in 2020. In December, it announced a restructuring that will eliminate about 400 jobs, 200 of them in the Pittsburgh region.