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We Deserve a Fair Contract
Our USW membership and bargaining committee have been extremely patient since negotiations began with ATI, and we need to remain united as the expiration of our contracts approaches.
Progress at the table has been extremely slow. We are still waiting for answers from management to resolve our outstanding issues, and they have still not responded to many of our information requests.
To reach a fair contract, ATI management needs to stay engaged with us in meaningful negotiations and address the issues that the committee has brought to the table on behalf of the membership.
We urge your continued solidarity as we push forward.
We know from experience that ATI management would like nothing more than to divide us, but we hoped that the company would have learned its lesson by now.
Our Basic Labor Agreement will expire on February 28th. After having taken care of themselves over the years, including significant wage increases, management has proposed for us a four-year labor agreement that attacks everything that you’ve earned including wages, health insurance, contracting out, scheduling and other issues.
ATI will make profits during the term of this agreement. The company and Wall Street project that next year and the foreseeable future will be even better.
You know the history. While Steelworkers have gone more than seven years without a wage increase, the ATI continues to pay management their own bonus payments.
Now, to add insult to injury, they want us to pay premiums for our health care, and they want new hires to have a health care plan that management could change at any time and would have less benefits and require them to pay premiums. Obviously, their long term plan would be to force everyone into a lesser plan and increase premiums on all of us over the years
After the lockout in 2015, when the company was losing money, we made responsible decisions and at the same time we improved our productivity. Now, they insist upon rewarding our hard work with concessions.
Below are a few of the major differences as we continue bargaining:
We Must Stand Up and Fight Back!
Unfortunately, this management doesn’t listen very closely and believes it always knows what’s right. The company’s proposal is extremely unfair in terms of both the costs it imposes and the wages it offers over the length of time it demands.
We don’t want a fight and the difficulties it brings to our families and our communities, and we didn’t come into these negotiations seeking one. We came to negotiate and met a management who thinks they know what’s best for us and a management that refuses to even discuss the most basic proposals we have made in a serious and good faith manner.
They want to use the current industry climate to enrich themselves, and then they have the nerve to turn to us with dramatic cost shifting and wage packages that are far below what we’ve earned and deserve.
In addition to the difficulties posed by the company’s proposal, your bargaining committee has been hindered by the company’s unfair labor practices which included dragging their feet at the table and delaying.
In unity,
Your USW/ATI Negotiating Committee
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