Union has ATI workers covered
They have been locked out of their jobs for 3 1/2 months, and starting today, about 2,220 union employees are without the health benefits they had with Allegheny Technologies Inc.
Medical, dental and eye coverage expired Monday for United Steelworkers members at 12 plants in six states, including the Allegheny Ludlum plate mill in Canton Township – where about 220, or 10 percent, of the affected workers are employed.
This is not an optimum situation for these employees, of course, but the benefits cutoff may not create the hardships that were expected. Alternative and affordable coverage is available.
“We’re fortunate enough that the international does have an insurance policy that will take care of the gap,” said Skip Longdon, unit president of USW Local 7139-5 for the Canton plant and a member of the negotiating team.
He explained the USW International has an emergency health plan that is covered by the union’s Strike and Defense Fund, which “comes out (of a percentage) of our union dues.”
“As long as we’re locked out, we’ll have coverage from the international. We’re not having nearly as big of a struggle as the company thought we’d have,” he said.
Longdon said this coverage will not be uniform, that it will depend on the health needs of each individual.
“Those with special issues,” he added, may have to pay for Cobra coverage at higher rates, but the Strike and Defense Fund will help pay for those premiums.
That fund, Longdon said, also may assist USW members with mortgages and other financial matters.
He admitted, though, this health-coverage situation has an element of the unknown.
“We’ve never been through this, so it’s a learning curve,” Longdon said. “Until we go through this and see special needs we have, it’s hard to figure what’s going to happen.”
A contract between the USW and Pittsburgh-based ATI expired June 30, but employees continued to work under terms of that pact until the Pittsburgh-based firm locked them out Aug. 15. ATI’s demand that workers begin paying part of their health insurance premiums was a major contract issue.
Negotiations continued until Aug. 6, when ATI said it made its “last, best and final” contract offer. ATI gave the union an Aug. 10 deadline to consider the offer and present it for vote – a deadline some USW members contended was too soon to get a complete vote. Then the lockout took place, with ATI saying it will operate the facilities with salaried and nonunion employees and temporary professional staff until a contract can be finalized.
There have been no negotiations since, and none is planned, Longdon said.
ATI spokesman Dan Greenfield could not be reached for comment.
“We’ve been willing to talk, but they don’t seem to be willing to talk,” Longdon said. “They just seem to want to give us this ‘last-and-final’ offer.”
He said the union was willing to work for two years under the old contract to help satisfy production for the company’s expansive new facility in Brackenridge, in the Allegheny Valley.
Longdon said the company contends that replacement workers have been productive, but he questions the level of productivity.
“They’re running scabs in our plant,” he said. “(The company is) saying they’re producing 90 percent of what we did, but we’ve been around and know what we’re hearing. It sounds like a ghost town in there.”