Posted on 10/03/2006 4:54:01 AM PDT by Brilliant
MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) -- The eight-month long lockout at AK Steel's Middletown Works isn't just a battle between a company and its union workers.
The effects of the lockout, which already has resulted in the loss of hundreds of jobs, are spreading across the community, home to steelmaking for more than a century.
Small businesses are feeling the crunch, and the city government faces cutbacks in police and firefighters.
Like other industrial towns across the Midwest that have been hurt by plant reductions or closings in recent years, Middletown has been struggling financially and voters are being asked next month to approve an increase in the city income tax.
"Overall, revenue is down about $500,000 compared with the same time last year," City Manager Bill Becker said. "That's not all because of AK; we lost a major construction business last year. We've been losing revenue for several years."
Becker knows the tax increase -- from 1.5 percent to 2.25 percent -- will be a hard sell with people already feeling the ripple effect of the lockout.
It was necessary before the lockout, and even more vital now, he said.
"We've made cuts across the board," Becker said. "We don't pick up peoples' leaves anymore, and we haven't opened our swimming pools in two years. A lot of these decisions aren't popular, but they have kept the city solvent."
The city still has optimism for the future as it remakes its economy, but the AK standoff -- which marked eight months on Sunday -- hangs over it. Hopes for a settlement rose when union workers took a vote on a company contract proposal about a week ago, but workers rejected it.
AK Steel locked out more than 2,500 hourly production and maintenance workers when their contract expired at midnight, Feb. 28. It has continued to run the mill with about 1,800 replacement workers and salaried personnel. Retirements and resignations have brought the number of union workers down to about 1,900.
The company says it needs a contract that wipes out a $40-a-ton competitive disadvantage it attributes to legacy costs. It has been adamant that it must eliminate work force guarantees, increase flexibility in assigning jobs, pass on some of its health care insurance costs and convert its pension plan to a 401(k) type.
Middletown, a city of about 53,000 people about 30 miles north of Cincinnati, once was undisputedly a company town, where the American Rolling Mill Co. -- later Armco and then AK Steel -- was founded in 1900 and generations of workers took coveted jobs right out of high school and spent their entire working lives in the mill.
Now AK is fighting to survive as a small player in an increasingly global steel industry, and its union work force gave up its independence in July to affiliate with the Machinists.
Becker has seen AK's impact on the community since he became a police officer in the 1970s, when a larger corporate office and facilities that no longer exist had swelled the company to some 7,500 employees.
"Even now, you can't talk to anybody in Middletown that isn't impacted by the lockout," he said.
Most locked-out workers say they have pared back substantially on optional spending, such as eating out, and some small restaurants say their business is off by 50 percent or more. Unemployment benefits ended after six months.
Union members say some have lost cars, homes and even marriages because of the lockout's financial pressure.
A veteran of the local real estate market says it's holding up.
"It's not been as bad as one might think," said John Sawyer, the third generation to run Sawyer Realtors. Values are holding well, but houses tend to be on the market longer, he said.
The United States produced just 9 percent of the world's steel last year, compared with 12 percent in 1996, while China's share has jumped from 13 percent to 33 percent, according to the International Iron and Steel Institute. AK Steel, with revenue of about $6 billion a year, does not rank among the top 30 producers.
But analysts say if AK can overcome its labor issues, it can thrive because it makes high-quality coated and stainless steels that are being consumed faster than other types. The steels are used in cars and appliances.
Middletown's leaders say the city will recover from the lockout's effects by remaking its image as an old-line manufacturing city of paper and steel mills.
A planned $200 million medical complex will be the city's biggest employer in a few years, Becker said. That and Middletown's location on Interstate 75, about midway between Cincinnati and Dayton, give the city good growth potential.
"It's all going to be one big city soon," Becker said. "The future is bright for Middletown."
It's nothing but a waste.
It appears they are staying open with scabs and the Union is fighting a losing battle.
Better a job with some benefits than no job at all.
Scabs=Replacement workers.
Replacement workers= People who are willing to work.
The last quarter was one of AK's best. There doing this with 1,000 less workers. I doubt this could continue but the fact is the union is doing this folks no good.
It looks to me like the Union chose not to enter into a contract, while a different supplier has.
The Detroit News video taped strikers during their last strike, the tapes should be made public to show just how wonderful the Union types are, "scabs" will be the mildest thing you may hear.
I have seen this first hand also - it is amazing the amount of productivity improvement when a union goes out on strike and management with replacement workers goes to work...
I have seen this first hand also - it is amazing the amount of productivity improvement when a union goes out on strike and management with replacement workers goes to work...
Thats the way it has always been. People out of work and looking for work have always been there to replace Union workers. I didnt invent the word scabs.
Union workers sometimes forget how good they have it.
This will go on until some of the Union guys get hungry enough to go back to work as scabs or until the whole bunch realises they are fighting a lost cause.
The old days when union violence with hoe handles and baseball bats is dead. If the Union cant shut down the place, they will lose, its as simple as that.
From what I am reading here the Company has profits up and they are paying less, they seem to be in the "catbird" seat.
Always cut muscle, never cut fat. Are those employees really the first item on the city budget to cut?
So, they are running the same plant with hundreds less employees. What does that tell you about the union workers' level of productivity?
Scabs=The things God made immediately after the creation of pus.
This is more in line with the origin of many labor unions. Enhancement of the craft and workmanship, as well as workplace safety and decent treatment of employees were the founding principles of many early unions. There was a lot of good done in the old days, such as reasonable and sensible changes to enhance employee safety in the workplace, elimination of the pernicious and destructive practice of child labor, fighting the exploitation of workers by decadent and crooked bosses and financiers.
But the labor movement has lost its way. It has become more of an advocate for laziness and featherbedding, as well as being one of the prime operative groups of the 'Rat party. Often unions today are adversarial and confrontational, with union bosses and enforcers themselves being more the exploiters than the legitimate representatives of the members they supposedly serve. They have fallen victim to the siren song of greed, much like those managers and owners they say they stand up against on behalf of "the working man". Unions really need to learn that putting a company out of business (through unreasonable and excessive demands) does not benefit the employees of said company.
You can't get people to raise taxes by cutting the assistant director of public art. It's like schools wanting a tax increase always threaten to cut football and buses instead of assistant superintendents.
This is City Manager 101. When things get tight and you need a fresh dose of tax money, cut the library, swimming pool and parks department. Never, under any circumstances should you consider doing without three assistant city managers, two clerks and two assistants, a publicist and PR department, etc...
THERE's THE TICKET!
increase city taxes! make more money!
NO, this will insure that NO ONE shops in this town anymore.
Good grief, where are people's senses!
This town is doomed. I pity the citizens.
The whole world has gone 'round the bend if they think raising taxes fixes ANYTHING like this.
A local Steel mill here has been running without a contract for almost a year I think - but there has been no strike.
I am sure they are putting in a lot of overtime and they have to resort to doing just the basics. however it does tell you that these people who are standing on the oputside , better get their crap together or they may remin out there.
Remember when ronald Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers?? The airplans kept flying and some of those guys are still working at MacDonalds.
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