USW

Striking ATI Steelworkers Hold the Line for Premium-Free Health Insurance

Leave a Comment / Labor Movement, manufacturing, unions / By max cyril

Across the country, steelworkers at nine plants of Allegheny Technologies, Inc. have been on strike for the last 11 weeks. They want raises; to stop contracting out; to secure full funding of their retirement benefits; and to beat back management’s efforts to introduce health insurance premiums and a second tier of coverage for younger workers. …

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The Union Bond

Leave a Comment / Right to Work, unions / By max cyril

Dave Dell Isola, the son and grandson of union members, grew up grateful for the family-sustaining wages and benefits that organized labor won for working people. But he never fully grasped the might of solidarity until he and his wife, Barbara, and their two sons lost everything in an apartment fire. Dell Isola’s brothers and …

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Workers Want a Green Economy, Not a Dirty Environment

Leave a Comment / Green jobs / By max cyril

To justify withdrawing from the Paris climate change accord, President Trump said during his press conference yesterday, “I was elected to represent the city of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” From terrible experience, Pittsburghers know about pollution. Before Pittsburgh’s renaissance, the streetlights Downtown frequently glowed at noon to illuminate sidewalks through the darkness of smoke and soot …

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The Price for Killing Workers Must be Prison for CEOs

Leave a Comment / Workplace Conditions / By max cyril

Every 12 days, a member of my union, the United Steelworkers (USW), or one of their non-union co-workers, is killed on the job. Every 12 days. And it’s been that way for years. These are horrible deaths. Workers are crushed by massive machinery. They drown in vats of chemicals. They’re poisoned by toxic gas, burned …

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Lacie Little: You’re Un-Fired

Honeywell Plant Freezes Summer Vacations

Leave a Comment / unionbusting, Vacation / By max cyril

At a time of year when many workers are taking family vacations, uranium workers at Honeywell’s plant in Metropolis, Ill. won’t have that option. On July 27, the company announced a vacation freeze. United Steelworkers Local 7-669, which represents workers at the plant, claims that the decision is just another salvo in a three-year-long battle by Honeywell to …

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“This is Not Just a Steelworker Issue”

Leave a Comment / accountability, unions, Workplace Conditions, workplace issues, workplace safety / By max cyril

Showing solidarity with our union brothers and sisters is a great way for us to ring in the New Year, says Jim Key, vice president at large of Steelworkers Local 550 in Paducah, Ky. Key, also his local’s legislative and political chairman, is asking union members and union supporters nationwide to take a minute to …

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China Drops Some Wind Power Subsidies After USW Complaint

Assert Yourself, America; Don’t be an Illegal Trade Victim

Leave a Comment / Free Trade / By max cyril

How is it that America finds herself in the position of schoolyard patsy, woe-is-me victim of China’s illegal trade practices that are destroying U.S. renewable energy manufacturing and foreclosing an energy-independent future? Come on, America. Stand up for yourself. Tell China that America isn’t going to hand over its lunch money anymore; international trade law will be enforced now. That’s the demand the United Steelworkers union made this week when it filed suit detailing how China violates a wide variety of World Trade Organization obligations.

For the Strength of Rosie the Riveter: Make It in America

Leave a Comment / Buy American Act / By max cyril

Shuttered U.S. factories and off-shored manufacturing are sapping American strength. Late in April, 58 percent of 1,000 likely voters told pollsters they believed America’s economy no longer led the world. They also said they supported enacting a national manufacturing policy to promote resurgence of domestic production — a return to the days of a robust Rosie the Riveter and a country that could secure its independence with dynamic manufacturing capability. Rosie said, “We Can Do It.” Americans believe we can still do it.