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Rapid Response Action Call: Keep Up the Pressure, Georgia Steelworkers Click here to download this Action Call as a PDF Keep Up the Pressure, Georgia Steelworkers For the last few weeks, we have been diligently pressuring Georgia legislators (http://usw.to/4wn) to oppose S.B. 362 (http://usw.to/4wi), a bill that would prohibit Georgia businesses receiving state economic subsidies from voluntarily recognizing a union in their workplace. This bill is clearly illegal because the federal government already protects this right. If passed it will deplete taxpayer dollars on costly legal fees and is nothing but a waste of time and resources that could be used to craft policies that are beneficial to Georgia families and communities. They knew we were coming. Yesterday, working people showed up at the statehouse in solidarity to urge lawmakers to oppose the bill in an anticipated vote in the House. Those efforts made a critical impact and the vote has been postponed until likely next week. We can’t stop now! We know better and we see right through this. When Steelworkers organize, we win! (http://usw.to/4x9) The new era of the Georgia labor movement is here and S.B. 362 is evidence that anti-union legislators funded by corporations are scared of workers getting their fair share. So, we must keep the pressure on! We Need You Now More than Ever! It's time to take action and reach every state representative. (http://usw.to/4x8) S.B. 362 is a bill that prevents employers in Georgia from receiving state incentives if they recognize union representation without first holding a secret ballot election. Private businesses would also be prohibited from receiving such subsidies if they share the contact information of employees with a union. These practices are legal under federal law and help workers get the unions they want. Let's stand together against S.B. 362 and safeguard the rights of workers and businesses in Georgia. Please take a moment to click HERE (http://usw.to/4x8) to send a prewritten email to your Georgia representative urging them to OPPOSE S.B. 362. It just takes a minute and makes a real impact! — Feb 28
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Women of Steel Own Their Power! The United Steelworkers (USW) know that women deserve a voice on the job and a seat at the table, and that isn’t just a catchy slogan. We firmly believe in amplifying women's voices and ensuring their representation at all levels of decision-making. Through education, inclusivity, and programs like Women of Steel we uplift women’s voices from the shop floor to the bargaining table, to the board room and beyond. Women of Steel know our power and we aren’t afraid to use it. On February 15, 2024, Megan Salrin, a legislative representative with the USW based in our Washington, D.C., Legislative and Policy Department, testified before the United States House Transportation and Infrastructure, Highways and Transit Subcommittee regarding the implementation of Buy America Provisions under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). A proud Woman of Steel, Megan understands the significance of worker voices, especially those of women and other marginalized groups, in shaping legislative and regulatory frameworks. In her capacity, Salrin plays a vital role in researching and assessing legislation and regulations affecting USW members, their employment, and our communities. The subcommittee hearing, chaired by Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AZ), focused on how the Buy America provisions of the IIJA affect U.S. workers, employers, and our economy. Effective enforcement of these provisions not only stimulates demand for goods and services produced by our members but also highlights gaps in the supply chain, encouraging investment in North American facilities. As the sole woman on the panel of witnesses, Salrin spoke with confidence and conviction, advocating for steelworker jobs and facilities. She cautioned against loopholes and blanket waivers, warning against their potential exploitation by profit-driven corporations, which could undermine the law to prioritize their bottom line, leaving workers, the economy, and the environment behind. As an international union with members across the United States and Canada, the USW advocates for domestic procurement provisions in legislation in both countries. While this presents unique challenges, we advocate for collaboration between our governments on trade and procurement policies. As our union engages with legislators in North America and beyond to develop equitable solutions that safeguard our members' jobs and livelihoods, irrespective of their geographic location, Women of Steel like Megan are integral to ensuring that workers voices are heard. Want to learn more about Megan and her experience testifying before Congress? See below for Seven Questions with Megan Salrin, a video from the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. For more information on the USW’s U.S. based legislative and policy work, and to learn how you can get involved go to uswrr.org and sign up for Rapid Response emails at usw.to/4sT today! Have questions? Email us at [email protected]. — Feb 27
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Long-term care workers in Wyoming vote to join the USW Workers at a long-term care facility in Cheyenne, Wyo., are now USW members after voting to join the union earlier this month. The 40 new members work at Edgewood Healthcare Sierra Hills in a variety of positions, including Registered Nurses (RN), Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA), dietary aides, housekeepers, bus drivers, and more. Taylor Ewig, who has worked as a CNA at the facility for nine years, said the most important issues that she and her co-workers hope to address are staffing levels and wages. “During night shift, there are only two CNAs taking care of 80 patients,” Ewig said. “We also have a number of hospice patients who require a higher level of care.” This is one of the many reasons why the group reached out to the AFL-CIO last December and were connected to the USW. Within just three days, they were able to collect enough cards to file for a union election. District 11 Staff Representative William Wilkinson, who worked with Ewing during the drive, said this excitement reveals what he’s known for a while—that Wyoming is ripe for organizing. “These deeply red states pay sub-par wages and safety is not prioritized,” said Wilkinson. “They’re also changing expectations regularly. That alone is driving a lot of organizing there right now.” Ewig said she looks forward to getting to the table and being able to talk honestly with management about how to improve conditions. “I’m just so proud of all my co-workers for coming together and doing this,” Ewig said. “We’ve never been so close.” — Feb 26
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Planned U.S. Steel Sale Meets Anger, Skepticism: USW Vows to Fight to Make Sure Company Lives Up to Obligations USW leaders and lawmakers across the political spectrum were united in voicing their disapproval when U.S. Steel announced in December that Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. was planning to purchase the iconic American company for $15 billion. “To say we’re disappointed in the announced deal between U.S. Steel and Nippon is an understatement,” International President David McCall said when the bid was announced on Dec. 18. “It demonstrates the same greedy, shortsighted attitude that has guided U.S. Steel for far too long.” Fighting for Jobs, Benefits While the union voiced its strong objections to the planned acquisition, McCall assured members and retirees that the union would fight with every tool at its disposal to protect good jobs, benefits and retirement plans. “Our union intends to exercise the full measure of our contract to ensure that whatever happens next with U.S. Steel, we protect the good, family-sustaining jobs we bargained,” McCall said. “We also will urge government regulators to carefully scrutinize this acquisition.” Nippon Steel is Japan’s largest, and the world’s fourth-largest, steel company, with an annual output of more than 44 million metric tons. By comparison, U.S. Steel’s output in 2022 was about 14.5 million metric tons. Supporting Cliffs Bid McCall pointed out that U.S. Steel management failed to consult with USW members before moving ahead with its plans. “Neither U.S. Steel nor Nippon reached out to our union regarding the deal, which is in itself a violation of our partnership agreement that requires U.S. Steel to notify us of a change in control or business conditions,” McCall said. “We remained open throughout this process to working with U.S. Steel to keep this iconic American company domestically owned and operated, but instead, it chose to push aside the concerns of its dedicated work force and sell to a foreign-owned company.” In January, less than a month after U.S. Steel announced the planned sale, the USW filed grievances against the company, in part because of management’s failure to live up to its obligation to notify the union. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio agreed and said that if U.S. Steel must be sold, the winning bid should go to Ohio-based Cleveland Cliffs, which announced an effort, with the strong support of the USW, to purchase U.S. Steel after the 123-year-old company announced in August that it was on the market. “Nippon and U.S. Steel have insulted American steelworkers by refusing to give them a seat at the table and raised grave concerns about their commitment to the future of the American steel industry,” Brown said. In a letter to members at U.S. Steel, McCall and District 7 Director Mike Millsap noted that the company has a history of broken commitments, including shutting down steelmaking and other operations at Great Lakes and Granite City. U.S. Steel also broke a promise of more than $1 billion in new and updated technology in Western Pennsylvania, and instead purchased Big River Steel. USS has shut down the East Chicago Tin Mill, the UPI Tin Mill and idled tin operations at the Gary plant. In addition, the company shut down Lone Star Steel, the Lorain, Ohio, plant and coke batteries in Clairton, Pa. Rather than changing course, Nippon intends to follow the current U.S. Steel business plan, McCall said. National Security Concerns In addition to the issue of jobs, shifting ownership of U.S. Steel, once the world’s most valuable company, outside the United States raises national security concerns, given the need for steel in infrastructure, military and defense applications. For their part, many government officials reacted with similar skepticism when they learned of U.S. Steel’s plans, echoing the USW’s concerns about jobs as well as economic and national security. U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a longtime USW ally whose home sits across the street from the entrance to U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thompson Works in Braddock, Pa., said he would work vigorously to prevent the sale. “It’s absolutely outrageous that U.S. Steel has agreed to sell themselves to a foreign company. Steel is always about security — both our national security and the economic security of our steel communities,” Fetterman said. “I am committed to doing anything I can do, using my platform and my position, to block this foreign sale.” Fetterman’s fellow Pennsylvanian, Sen. Bob Casey, also voiced strong objections to the sale, as did a group of Republican lawmakers who wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen asking her to actively oppose the acquisition. The government “can and should block the acquisition of U.S. Steel by NSC, a company whose allegiances clearly lie with a foreign state and whose record in the United States is deeply flawed,” a group of three conservative Republican senators wrote to Yellen. Dan Simmons, president of Local 1899 at U.S. Steel’s Granite City Works in Illinois, said he initially hoped the potential sale would bring a “fresh vision” to the company, but the Nippon acquisition did not present that opportunity. “This entire process was not conducted as it should have been, but rather in typical USS fashion of keeping the union in the dark,” Simmons said. “We now find ourselves facing a new owner with the same USS leadership and business plan that, frankly, got us here in the first place.” In addition, McCall said, trusting an iconic U.S. company to overseas control raises concerns about fair trade. The United States currently imposes 12 different anti-dumping tariffs on Japanese steel, McCall said. U.S. Steel, he said, “has been an active participant in these anti-dumping cases. We should question if Nippon Steel gets control of U.S. Steel, it could use its status as a ‘domestic producer’ to work against the trade cases from the inside,” he said. “Nippon Steel could order U.S. Steel to change its longstanding position.” Regulatory Review Still, the agreement between U.S. Steel and Nippon is not yet a done deal. Federal regulators, including the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which includes leaders from the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security and Justice, will review the bid, as will President Joe Biden. Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, said the president “believes the purchase of this iconic American-owned company by a foreign entity — even one from a close ally — appears to deserve serious scrutiny in terms of its potential impact on national security and supply chain reliability.” Regardless of what the future holds for the company, McCall vowed that the USW will continue to fight to make sure that its owners live up to their obligations to workers and retirees. “This includes not just the day-to-day commitments of our labor agreement but also significant obligations to fund pension and retiree insurance benefits that are the most extensive in the domestic steel industry,” he said. “No union has actively engaged in more acquisitions in its core industries than the USW, and rest assured, our union will hold management at U.S. Steel accountable to every letter of our collective bargaining and other existing agreements.” — Feb 13
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Members Ratify WestRock Contract: New Master Agreement Covers 5,500 Paperworkers in 24 States Members at more than four dozen WestRock locations across 24 states voted in December to ratify a new four-year master agreement covering more than 5,500 USW members. The agreement, which members ratified by a more than 3-to-1 margin through mail-in ballots, covers paperworkers at 15 mills and 36 converter plants. Aggressive Agenda International Vice President Luis Mendoza, who leads bargaining in the union’s paper sector, credited members for setting an aggressive bargaining agenda and demonstrating unwavering solidarity despite challenging circumstances. “This bargaining team was determined to win a contract that would create stability and security for members now and into the future,” Mendoza said. “And they achieved that goal by working together.” The new master agreement went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024, and covers contracts with scheduled expirations through the end of 2027. The first year of the agreement includes a 3.25percent wage increase, with a 3 percent wage increase in each subsequent year. The master agreement covers workers at WestRock mills and converter plants in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Best Deal in Years Member Tim Cooks, chief steward for Local 819 in Fresno, Calif., has worked for WestRock for 17 years and said it was the best agreement he’s seen during his tenure with the company. “All in all, we are moving in the right direction,” said Cooks. In addition to raising wages, the contract held the line on health care costs and provided members with significant improvements to retirement contributions and vacation. “In this environment, this was as good a deal as we could have gotten,” said Billy Smith, president of Local 9-0425 in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. In addition to the across-the-board financial gains, the contract contained no concessions and eliminated a two-tier wage system that members had made it a priority to abolish. The agreement also improved life insurance and short-term disability benefits, while accelerating benefits for new hires. Smith said that eliminating two-tier wages and improving benefits – particularly for newer workers – would improve members’ lives while also strengthening the union. “That’s a big deal,” Smith said. “We brought a lot of people up, and that’s what we’re here to do.” New Ownership An added challenge that members faced as negotiations got underway was the announcement of a proposed merger of WestRock with Smurfit Kappa, one of the largest producers of containerboard in Europe, with additional operations in Mexico, Central America and South America. Smurfit Kappa announced in September that it had reached an agreement to acquire WestRock, with a plan to close the transaction in mid-2024. Mendoza said that the union still has concerns about the planned merger, which would make the new company one of the largest, if not the largest paper and packaging company in the world by revenue. “This transaction raises questions for workers, including who will be leading the combined company into the future, how they will manage their work force, and how the results could affect USW members,” Mendoza said. The USW’s agreement with WestRock does include a successorship clause that requires any new owners to act in accordance with the terms of the union’s existing collective bargaining agreements. SAVE THE DATE: PAPER CONFERENCE The USW will hold the 2024 National Paper Bargaining Conference from Aug. 5 to Aug. 8 in Austin, Texas. The conference marks the first time in six years that USW paperworkers will gather in person to network, learn, build solidarity and, importantly, set the union’s National Paper Bargaining Policy. For more about the conference, including registration, hotel and travel information, visit usw.org/events. — Feb 13
United Steelworkers Press Releases Feed
- Rapid Response Action Call: Keep Up the Pressure, Georgia Steelworkers
- Women of Steel Own Their Power!
- Long-term care workers in Wyoming vote to join the USW
- Planned U.S. Steel Sale Meets Anger, Skepticism: USW Vows to Fight to Make Sure Company Lives Up to Obligations
- Members Ratify WestRock Contract: New Master Agreement Covers 5,500 Paperworkers in 24 States