A long-time member of United Steelworkers Local 6787 is urging her brothers and sisters to sign a petition—at Thursday’s membership meeting—calling on the local to meet with the International.

At issue: the layoff minimization plan which Local 6787 negotiated with ArcelorMittal late in November 2008, after the company invoked the WARN Act and threatened to lay off up to 2,444 workers.

In a broadside dropped through the letter slot of the Chesterton Tribune early this morning, Diane Guy calls the layoff minimization plan “a concessionary agreement” which management has taken “as a sign that 6787 is weak and ignorant.”

“Since then, Mgt. has shown us utter contempt, and never mind the gratitude,” Guy writes in the broadside. More, she argues: the company intends “to try to stretch out this agreement until 2012—contract time.”

“We have lost $1,000s, plus work rules and alternative work schedules, due to an agreement that is in violation of our contractual rights,” Guy states. “It’s clear Mgt. intends to continue this until contract time 2012. They are hiring at Inland & LTV and every furnace is up but ours. This company used an economic downturn to manipulate an agreement to take back far more than we gained in this contract. Wear us down, make many desperate financially, demand 20 percent and offer 40 percent, toss us a bone.”

Guy also points to ArcelorMittal’s fourth-quarter profit of $1.07 billion, with “$3 billion set aside for improvements.”

So Guy wants a meet between Local 6787 and the International. The problem, she says: President Paul Gipson has “made it plain he is against that.”

Thus the petition: “It does no good to just sit & bitch. Attend (Thursday’s membership), speak up, and sign the petition.”

The Tribune was unable to reach Guy this morning for further comment.

Gipson himself was available, however, noted that Guy has the best of intentions, and on the core issue—the company’s treatment of the membership at Burns Harbor—agreed with Guy. But in picking a fight with Local 6787, Gipson said, Guy is looking in the wrong place. “Diane needs to figure out who the real enemy is. It’s not our local union.”

To begin with, a meet with the International is almost beside the point, Gipson said. A motion to have just such a meeting was voted down by the membership at its last meeting.

Moreover, the layoff minimization plan language is in the collective bargaining agreement ratified by the membership, Gipson said. “When the company invoked WARN in 2008, we reminded them about that language. And every local officer signed the agreement.”

The real issue is ArcelorMittal’s treatment of the membership at Burns Harbor, Gipson said. It is the case that ArcelorMittal has started up every blast furnace idled by the company during the downturn—including the smaller, less efficient furnace at Indiana Harbor—with the exception of Furnace D at Burns Harbor. “It’s a vindictive move on their part,” Gipson said.

And it put Local 6787 in a trick bag, he added, because under the terms of the layoff minimization plan the key trigger for rescinding the plan is a return to a 40-heat schedule. “But you can’t hit 40 turns with one furnace,” Gipson said. “You just can’t.”

A study by a union analyst has clearly demonstrated that “economically the right decision would be to spend $20 million and re-start Blast Furnace D,” Gipson said. “Right now the company is losing $7 million a month because that furnace isn’t on line.”

“The company says that the labor costs at Burns Harbor are out of line and that they can’t afford to restart it,” Gipson said. “But they can’t afford not to. They’re not saving money.”

On the other hand, Gipson said in response to Guy’s observation about ArcelorMittal’s fourth-quarter profit that the company did turn a profit, only not in the U.S. “Those are European profits.”

Still, “the time will come when we’ll be forced to revoke the layoff minimization plan,” Gipson said. “We negotiated it in a bad market a year and a half ago. But the market’s improving.”

Posted 3/3/2010