After nearly a year of negotiations, the United Steelworkers have a tentative agreement on a new contract with Arcelor-Mittal. The steel-maker has 15 plants across the U.S including facilities in Cleveland and Warren.
The nearly 14,000 USW members employed by ArcelorMittal nationwide have been working without a contract for eight months. About 1,600 of them work at Cleveland’s plant. Steelworker’s official Tony Montana calls the agreement fair. And he says it preserves wages, benefits and contractual protections despite the company’s attempts at cuts based on recent economic set-backs.
“Early in the process we committed to our members and retirees that we would not allow the company to use a temporary downturn in the industry as an excuse to reverse decades of collective-bargaining progress.”
Montana says the rank and file will be given details of the agreement over the next few weeks. If it’s ratified, the new contract would run until September of 2018. Arcelor-Mittal officials have not returned calls seeking comment.
