Feb. 9, 2007 — The United Steelworkers (USW) and the Allegheny Ludlum unit of Allegheny Technologies announced a tentative agreement on a new four-year contract. A tentative agreement was also reached with the company’s Albany, Ore., titanium unit.
If ratified by the membership, the contracts would cover about 3,000 USW-represented workers at Allegheny Ludlum specialty steel plants in Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Oregon. Terms of the tentative deal were withheld until details can be distributed to USW members for their review.
The early settlement was approved unanimously by a bargaining committee made up of 16 local union presidents from the Oregon and Allegheny Ludlum plant sites. It will be submitted to the union membership for ratification as soon as is practical.
The agreement will be voted on by mail ballot consistent with the unions’ past practice in the steel industry. Results of the ratification are expected by early March.
USW International Vice President Tom Conway, the union’s lead negotiator in the discussions, said the settlement meets the needs of both parties by recognizing both the market conditions for products produced and the hard work and productivity improvements accomplished by USW members during the current agreement. “We are pleased with the results,” Conway said.
The previous agreements were set to expire on June 30, 2007.
The USW is the largest industrial union in North America and represents more than 850,000 members in the United States and Canada.
Allegheny Technologies is one of the largest and most diversified specialty metals producers in the world with revenues of $4.9 billion during 2006. ATI’s major markets include aerospace and defense, chemical process industry/oil and gas, electrical energy, medical, automotive, food equipment and appliance, machine and cutting tools, and construction and mining. Products include titanium and titanium alloys, nickel-based alloys and superalloys, stainless and specialty steels, zirconium, hafnium, and niobium, tungsten materials, grain-oriented silicon electrical steel and tool steels, and forgings and castings.