Union: 750 AK Steel jobs safe for now

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x1517865207/AK-Steel-jobs-safe-for-now-union-says

July 17, 2009 @ 12:00 AM

DAVID E. MALLOY

The Herald-Dispatch

ASHLAND -- Union officials at AK Steel's Ashland Works say a federal arbitrator's ruling means the plant's 750 jobs should be safe at least through the end of the year.

The company announced plans in mid-May to idle the Ashland Works and its 750 jobs starting later this month or early in August and continuing through the end of the year. If the Middletown, Ohio-based company proceeded with those plans, it would be the second idling of the steel plant within the past year. AK Steel idled the Ashland plant for more than two months late in 2008 and early in 2009.


File photo/The Herald-Dispatch
Union officials at AK Steel's Ashland Works say a federal arbitrator's ruling means the plant's 750 jobs should be safe at least through the end of the year.

Raymond F. Sekula, a federal arbitrator, wrote in a decision Wednesday that language in the 2005 collective bargaining agreement between the company and the United Steelworkers of America Local 1865 in Ashland prevents the planned shutdown. The language means that if there are orders for steel that the Ashland Works can produce, then that work must contractually be assigned to it instead of the company's blast furnace in Middletown, Sekula said.

"It's a good ruling," Doug Campbell, Local 1865 president, said Thursday. "It means we should be able to keep the plant open. We're just happy to keep working."

"Any arbitrator's ruling is binding."

Harold R. Brown, chairman of the local union's grievance committee, called the decision "great news."

FULL story at link.

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