AK Steel lockout ends

AK Steel locked out 2,505 members of the Armco Employees Independent Federation at the Middletown, Ohio, plant on Feb. 26, 2006. The workers spent the next year on the picket line, enduring hardship and loss but repeatedly rejecting management’s “final” offers.

During that time AEIF merged with the Machinists union, hoping the Machinists’ multi-union pension plan would make it easier to get AK to retain their defined-benefit pensions. The AK bosses wouldn’t budge, however. They insisted on converting to 401K plans, in which a set amount is contributed but the funds invested are at the mercy of the stock market—witness Enron—for hourly employees.

Now, after quits and retirements, the remaining 1,759 members of Machinists Local Lodge 1943 have overwhelmingly ratified a four-and-a-half year contract. The 401K will not be imposed. The workers will keep their traditional pensions. By June every union member will be back to work; by September most of the scabs will be getting pink slips.

Other highlights of the agreement include raises and quarterly bonuses based on the amount of steel shipped. Setbacks include changes in classification and increased outsourcing that will ultimately cost jobs.

Whatever the shortcomings, workers explain that it was the best they could win, and they say they’re relieved the battle is over. It was a tremendous victory that their union was able to push back the pension raiders, especially in this period of widespread attacks on defined benefits. And the fact that a union could win against a hardnosed company with a history of locking out workers—AK locked out members of the United Steel Workers in Mansfield, Ohio, for three-and-a-half years before settling—is encouraging to all unions fighting to save workers’ pensions.