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I N T E R N AT I O N A L E X E C U T I V E B O A R D

Leo W. GerardInternational President

Stan JohnsonInt’l. Secretary-Treasurer

Thomas M. ConwayInt’l. Vice President

(Administration)

Fred RedmondInt’l. Vice President

(Human Affairs)

Ken NeumannNat’l. Dir. for Canada

Jon GeenenInt’l. Vice President

Gary BeeversInt’l. Vice President

Carol LandryVice President at Large

D I R E C T O R S

David R. McCall, District 1

Michael Bolton, District 2

Stephen Hunt, District 3

William J. Pienta, District 4

Daniel Roy, District 5

Wayne Fraser, District 6

Jim Robinson, District 7

Ernest R. “Billy” Thompson, District 8

Daniel Flippo, District 9

John DeFazio, District 10

Robert Bratulich, District 11

Robert LaVenture, District 12

J.M. “Mickey” Breaux, District 13

C O M M U N I C AT I O N S S TA F F :

Jim McKay, EditorWayne Ranick, Director of CommunicationsGary Hubbard, Director of Public Affairs, Washington, D.C.Aaron Hudson and Kenny Carlisle, Designers Lynne Baker, Jim Coleman, Deb Davidek, Gerald Dickey, Connie Mabin, Tony Montana, Scott Weaver, Barbara White Stack

Official publication of the United Steelworkers

Direct inquiries and articles for USW@Work to:United Steelworkers Communications Department

Five Gateway CenterPittsburgh, PA 15222phone 412-562-2400

fax 412-562-2445online: www.usw.org

Volume 05/No.2 Spring 2010

USW@Work (ISSN 1931-6658) is published four times a year by the United Steelworkers AFL-CIO•CLC Five Gateway Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. Subscriptions to non-members: $12 for one year; $20 for two years. Periodicals postage paid at Pittsburgh, PA and additional mailing offices.

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Copyright 2010 by United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO•CLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the United Steelworkers.

F E AT U R E SSpeaking OutCAPITOL LETTERSNews Bytes

O N T H E C O V E R

SOAR illustration by Daniel Marsula033233

I N S I D EU S W @ W O R KThese senseless deaths have to stop. And of course we know it’s not just mine workers that need protection. It’s housekeep-

ers, carwash workers, meatpackers, construction workers, farm workers and janitors. In other words, it’s all workers.

“”Labor Secretary Hilda Solis

In remarks made while asking for a moment of silence to honor 29 coal miners who died in a West Virginia coal mine explosion.

SOARThe Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR) celebrates 25 years of activism on behalf of retirees and workers. Join and get active.

REFINERY SAFETYNear-misses and deadly tragedies still occur in the petroleum refining industry five years after 15 workers were killed and 180 were injured in a blast at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas.

HEALTH CARE REFORMThe historic health care legislation signed by President Obama will help most Americans gain access to health care coverage. The USW is working hard to figure out what it means for you.

TRADE VICTORYAmerican pipe workers furloughed by the thou-sands because of unfairly priced and illegally subsidized imports from China are getting relief from a big trade case championed by the USW.

04 06

14 26

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Education MattersWhile good jobs, working conditions and

health care are indeed the basic demands of all workers, I would like to add education (especially higher education) to the list. Because of terrible budget situations, most states are cutting contribu-tions to state universities and community colleges. In order to make up shortfalls, schools are raising tuitions, thus limiting access. Low-cost higher education has traditionally allowed children of workers to train for jobs in the new economy and to expand the intellectual horizons of all, no matter their occupation. Access to higher education, for those who want it, should be a fundamental right for all, not a privilege for the wealthy.

Judith Wishnia, Associate MemberRetired, Local 2190, AFTSetauket, N.Y.

Right to OrganizeI joined the USW as an associate member

in 2004 because I strongly support the right to organize and am concerned that this is being frit-tered away without anyone really speaking out. I believe that there are people like myself who have never had the chance to join a union, but could and should be organized to support unions – like with an active, meaningful associate membership program.

Marge Boyle, Associate MemberSaint Paul, Minn.

Doris Tanner, WWII AviatorThe Women of Steel of Local 878L in Union

City, Tenn., hosted an appreciation ceremony on March 19 in honor of Doris Tanner for receiving a congressional gold medal for her service as a Women Air Service Pilot (WASP) during WWII.

Mrs. Tanner spent a lifetime teaching history in high school and college. I believe she was so pas-sionate because she didn’t just watch history being made; she made history herself.

There were only 1,000 WASPs and their jobs were to fly planes from their factories to military bases in order to free up male pilots for the war effort. The WASPs disbanded in late 1944.

Mrs. Tanner was asked if she would do it all over again. “In the blink of an eye,” she said. “I’ve got ice water in my veins.”

The Steelworkers and a grateful nation are proud of her historic efforts.

Johnny Dyer, Recording SecretaryLocal 878LUnion City, Tenn.

USW Saved My JobI started work at the US Magnesium plant in

July 1977. In October 2008, I was terminated. My local union stood by me and my case went to arbitration. I received nearly $35,000 in back pay and got my job back. The Steelworkers improved my wages and benefits and saved my job.

Frank DeHerrera, Local 8319Tooele, Utah

Manufacturing in AmericaThe biggest problem with manufacturing in

America is the CEOs have to look at the bottom line for the shareholders. Until we get CEOs to commit to American workers, we are in a losing battle.

Al Jeffery, Retired, Local 2730 Homerville, Ohio

Hope in Unethical TimesYour seasonal magazine is excellent, both

informative (for news not otherwise available) and inspirational, a mood changer as well as a hope giver that these lousy unethical times will not endure. Thank you and more power to you!

Helen Hift, Associate MemberMonona, Wis.

Corporate Lack of RespectMy mom, Elizabeth M. Larrabee, was a mem-

ber of the USW and passed away July 8, 2008. Mom had a wonderful career at the Scott Paper Mill in Winslow, Maine, before it was sold in 1993 to Kimberly-Clark and finally closed in 1995.

It was a terrible blow to the local workers and to the local economy and another sign of the lack of respect that corporations have for past and pres-ent employees and the communities where they reside.

I support all of your efforts to better the work-ing lives of your members. I am a former IBM em-ployee whose 20-year career ended in 15 minutes on a terrible day in June 2002. Once an example of what employers should be like, IBM, under the guidance of Louis V. Gerstner, was transformed into “just another” company.

Since then, IBM employees have lost their retirement medical coverage, and their defined benefit pension plans have been replaced by a 401(k) program that bears all the risk of the stock market and its fluctuations over time.

Thank you for your efforts.

Robert LarrabeeWinooski, Vt.


American pipe mills that fur-loughed thousands of workers because of unfairly priced and illegally subsidized Chinese

competition are getting relief from a record-setting trade case championed by the USW.

Border agents were ordered in April by the U.S. Commerce Department to start collecting tariffs on oil field pipe made in China and dumped, or sold at less than fair value, in the United States.

On May 3, the International Trade Commission (ITC) voted 6-0 to affirm the preliminary anti-dumping tariffs imposed by Commerce. It was the final step in a trade case filed in 2009 by the USW and the domestic industry.

Anti-dumping duties ranging from 30 to 100 percent will offset the Chinese underselling in the U.S. market, said Roger B. Schagrin, trade counsel for the USW and domestic producers.

Another prong of the case involv-ing illegal subsidies by China to its pipe industry concluded with the imposition last January of countervailing duties ranging from 10.5 percent to 16 percent.

When the anti-dumping duties are added to those already being collected since January for Chinese subsidized oil tubular goods, International

President Leo W. Gerard said there will be at minimum an effective 40 percent tariff rate.

“China’s state-owned steel pipe exporters are predators seeking to steal American jobs and destroy our domes-tic industries in violation of their trade obligations,” Gerard said.

The trade case was the largest brought by any sector of U.S. industry based on volume and value of imports.

During the investigation 47 U.S. House members and 13 U.S. Senators wrote to the ITC about the importance of obtain-ing relief for the industry and its work-ers. The final injury hearing involved testimony from congressional members and governors of Ohio and Pennsylva-nia.

At stake was the future of some 6,000 domestic workers employed by eight oil country tubular goods

The U.S. Department of Com-merce has sided with the do-mestic paper industry and the USW in imposing preliminary

tariffs on imported coated paper prod-ucts from China and Indonesia.

The tariffs, announced on April 29, will be imposed on imports of certain coated paper to offset the impact of the unfair advantage of dumping.

Importers of the coated paper were immediately required to post a bond or deposit cash in an amount equal to the announced margins pending final resolu-tion of the cases later this year.

Unfair trading has caused mill closures and job losses all across the country in paper-making communities.

International President Leo W. Ge-rard and executives from paper compa-nies that joined in filing the complaint - Appleton Coated LLC, NewPage Corp., and Sappi Fine Paper North America – said they welcomed the determination.

“It’s high time that paper sector dumping is addressed,’’ Gerard said. “The loss of jobs and resulting commu-nity impact has been devastating.”

The Commerce Department placed dumping margins of 30.8 percent against the Gold East Paper Jiangsu Co. of China and 89.7 percent against the Yan-zhou Tianzhang Paper Industry Co., also of China. Chinese companies not named in the case face a 135.8 percent duty. The Department found that a single rate of 10.6 percent should apply to all Indone-sian coated paper.

The paper products covered by the decision include coated paper in sheet form used in magazines, annual reports and other high-quality printing.

The USW and the domestic compa-nies filed unfair trade cases last Sept. 23 with the Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commis-sion, alleging coated paper from China and Indonesia had been dumped and il-legally subsidized, harming the domestic industry and its employees.

Dumping occurs when a foreign pro-ducer sells into the U.S. market for less than the price that a producer charges in its home market or when its U.S. prices are below the cost of production.

International Vice President Jon Geenen, who heads the USW’s paper sector, said the domestic industry is modern and its union workers are ef-ficient enough to compete if the Chinese and Indonesian competitors quit cheating and finally play by the rules.

“The cost of this unfair trade has been incredible for the USW paper workers in rural towns and metropolitan communities alike,’’ Geenen said.

The United States is hemorrhag-ing millions of jobs as a result of the growing trade deficit, largely with China.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, 2.4 mil-lion jobs have been lost or displaced in the United States as a result of the burgeoning trade deficit with that nation, concluded a report from the Washing-ton-based Economic Policy Institute.

Growing trade deficits cost jobs in every state and congressional district, including the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, high-tech industries are losing jobs fast-er than any other sector of the economy.

The computer, electronic equip-ment and parts industries experienced the largest growth in trade deficits with China, resulting in 628,000 job losses —

26 percent of all jobs displaced by trade between 2001 and 2008.

The hardest-hit congressional dis-tricts were located in California, Texas and North Carolina, which was hit in a variety of manufacturing industries. New York, Illinois and other populous states also had major job losses.

“China’s cheating is causing Amer-ica to lose more than just the capacity to make widgets in

the one-sided trade arrangements with China,” said Scott Paul, AAM’s execu-tive director, said.

“Sophisticated electronics and high-tech products that once were made in the United States are increasingly being made in China instead. We are losing more and more of these good jobs.”

The report cites China’s currency manipulation as a major cause of the

growing U.S. trade deficit with that

nation. China has pegged its currency to the dollar at a rate that encourages a large bilateral surplus with the United States.

Other causes include massive industrial subsidies in China, lax labor and environmental law enforcement,

intellectual property theft, piracy and Chinese policies that block market access to U.S. firms.

producers and their communities. Nearly half of the work force in that industry segment has been laid off at different times since the case was filed in April 2009 by the USW and domestic produc-ers.

International Vice President Tom Conway, who heads labor negotiations with the pipe companies, said the tariffs are timely as the U.S. oil and natural gas industry plans to ramp up production.

“We now can expect callback of laid-off American pipe workers who can share in the recovery of this industry with sus-tainable jobs as the inventory of illegally-traded pipe is eliminated,” Conway said.

Imports from China of the oil coun-try tubular goods more than tripled to $2.6 billion in 2008 from $750 million a year earlier as gasoline prices soared and new wells were drilled. Imports fell to $1.1billion last year in 2009 after oil prices dropped and preliminary duties were imposed on the Chinese products.

The dumping and subsidization cases started on April 8, 2009 with complaints filed by the USW and steel firms includ-ing U.S. Steel Corp., Maverick Tube Corp., Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel, Northwest Pipe, TMK IPSCO, V&M Star, LLP, V&M TCA, and Wheatland Tube Corp.

Net job loss due to growing trade deficits with China 2001-2008, by state.

Imaginechina via AP Images

Source: EPI


During the contentious fight over health insurance reform, retiree Marion Prasjner and his band of SOAR members

lost no opportunity to make their voices heard to their Pennsylvania congress-man, Jason Altmire.

“We talk to retirees every day. We live in this community. We’re the church leaders, the volunteers, the voters,” Prasjner said as members of SOAR, the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees, joined a protest at Altmire’s office in Aliquippa, Pa.

Seniors endured a long, confusing, often ugly debate about health reform, but ultimately, Prasjner said, they un-derstood it was time for change.

“We know seniors want health insurance reform that helps them get medicine without sacrificing food or other needs,” Prasjner told reporters during the protest.

Prasjner, president of the Aliquippa chapter of SOAR, is one of thousands of outspoken volunteers who have to-gether made SOAR a recognized force in political fights for the interests of retirees and their families.

25 years of activismThis year, SOAR celebrates 25 years

of activism with an appreciation of its rich history and the knowledge that the struggle for the rights to a secure retirement continues in both the United States and Canada.

“We’ve worked an awful lot to save health care, and we’ve been in Wash-ington, D.C. lobbying to make sure our Social Security is not messed with,’’ Prasjner said in discussing his chapter’s activities. “This is our work. This is what we are dedicated to do.”

SOAR, created in 1985 during a steel industry crisis with the direction and support of retired International President Lynn Williams, has over 230 chapters with 70,000 members.

The initial idea was to provide a fo-rum for retirees who wanted to continue to be engaged in the union and its fight for worker and retiree rights.

“Lynn’s vision was the union should be there to help people – not just when they are at work, but when they are out of work and retired too,’’ said Interna-tional President Leo W. Gerard.

In both the United States and Can-ada, the union must continue to defend

pension plans that have been under-mined by the greedy antics and corrup-tion of Wall Street. Canada’s single-payer health care system is also under attack and the fight for a fair system in the United States is far from over.

“There is every reason to stay con-nected to the union and continue the struggle, and find a place to play an active role’’ Gerard said. “It is incum-bent on our generation to take care of the generation that came before us and to prepare the next generation to replace us. And if we can keep that continuity going, it will keep our union strong.”

Since its inception, SOAR has been a major part of the USW’s ongoing fight for a better deal for workers and retir-ees. It has long fought for the preserva-tion of Social Security, Medicare, and for better health care protection.

SOAR members stand with the union on other issues, notably election campaigns and the fight for fair trade laws that encourage, not discourage, the rebirth of U.S. manufacturing.

“SOAR members are in the fore-front of all our legislative fights. They are foot soldiers for our battles,’’ said SOAR Director Jim Centner. “Workers’ issues are retiree issues. They are joined at the hip.”

Retirees often have the flexibility to be politically active at times when working members are tied up with their jobs and families, said current SOAR President Connie Entrekin, a retired director of District 9.

That can mean taking a long bus trip to lobby in Washington, D.C., filling in when needed on an organizing cam-paign or on a picket line, and packing a town hall meeting.

“SOAR has been active from the day of its birth until now in the fight for the rights of retirees to save their Social Se-curity, and to establish a fair and reason-able health care system,” Entrekin said.

Along the way, as the USW grew through mergers, so did SOAR. USW retirees opened SOAR to retirees from the former United Rubber Workers, the American Brick and Glass Work-ers, American Flint Glass Workers and PACE and other merger partners.

“You’ve got to stand up for your own rights. You’ve got to belong to an organization that believes in saving what you negotiated, what you worked

for all of your life,’’ Entrekin said. “It could all be gone with the stroke of a pen in Washington or Canada. You’ve got to be active.”

Retiree power in politicsSteve Skvara, a retired steelworker

and SOAR member from Indiana, is a vivid example of the power retirees can exert in a political debate.

The retired LTV steelworker became the voice of middle-class frustration in 2007 when he confronted Democratic presidential candidates at an AFL-CIO forum in Chicago about health care and said he could not afford to purchase coverage for his wife.

“What’s wrong with America?’’ Sk-vara tearfully asked candidates attend-ing the televised debate. “And what will you do to change it?”

Like all of LTV’s workers, Skvara lost much of his health care insurance when the Cleveland-based company tumbled into bankruptcy in 2000 for the last time and went out of business by the start of 2002.

“When the company filed for bank-ruptcy protection, I saw how SOAR stood up for retirees and made sure we were taken care of as best we could be under the circumstances of bankruptcy,’’ Skvara said. “It gave us some place to turn.”

“Usually, when companies filed for bankruptcy protection, (other) unions said there was nothing we can do and walked away,” Skvara said.

“The Steelworkers aren’t like that. They were the first to fight for retirees and their rights and to try and reclaim benefits that they could. That’s the truth,” he added.

“It shows you how Steelworkers are so different from any other union. They are like Navy Seals and the Marines. They leave no one behind.”

Rallying cryLTV’s first bankruptcy, in 1986, and

its decision to unilaterally terminate retiree health care benefits proved to be a rallying point for the newly-formed SOAR.

Pensioners picketed to protest the termination and active workers refused to cross the line. The wildcat became a sanctioned strike and retiree health care was restored, until the next time LTV went into bankruptcy protection.


The next year, in 1987, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. terminated four LTV pension plans, including two that covered hourly employees and two that covered salaried workers. Both hourly plans were restored after LTV emerged from bankruptcy protection in 1993.

“We marshaled the troops, sent them to D.C., sent them to New York to the bankruptcy court,’ Centner recalled. “It demonstrated that the union cared for retirees; that we were there for them, and would be there for them in the future.”

The LTV protests were the begin-ning of the political and community activism that has been SOAR’s hall-mark ever since.

“And these people work,” Gerard said. “It’s not unusual during the elec-tion process to see SOAR volunteers stuffing envelopes, some knocking on doors, some driving people to the polls. Almost every chore you can imagine in an election campaign, our retirees volunteer to take part in it.”

George Edwards, a charter mem-ber and longtime volunteer from U.S. Steel’s Lorain, Ohio, Works, takes

pride in the fact that SOAR has made a name for itself by organizing for political activism and strike support.

“I’ve seen SOAR evolve from a retirees’ organization where people sat around and talked about the old days in the mill to an organization that is dealing with current events,” said Edwards, now 93 and still active. “It has become more and more a part of the union.”

Bob Jurasko, vice president of the SOAR chapter in Aliquippa, clearly remembers that first fight over retiree

benefits. Aliquippa was home to a ma-jor LTV mill that is now closed.

“We were all losing,” said Jurasko. “Everybody came to the meetings because they wanted to know what the next step would be. Were we going to get our health care back? Were we go-ing to get our pensions back? It became a rallying point.”

Making problems visibleBefore SOAR there was no strong

advocate in the union to focus atten-tion on the special problems and needs faced by USW pensioners and their spouses. SOAR made those prob-lems visible and helped to fashion the USW’s policies.

Through very difficult times in our basic industries, the USW has fought for retirees in many venues including at the bargaining table and in the courts.

Court fights included trying to prevent the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. from stripping retir-ees of benefits. One result was the establishment of VEBAs, or Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Associations, or trust funds that are used to help restore lost benefits.

Gerard said he is “extremely proud” of the role that SOAR has played in shaping the USW’s vision of responsi-bility towards retirees.

“Obviously, keeping the union’s attention on retirees and the obligation to the people who built this union and made it the institution it is now proud to be … is an important ongoing accom-plishment,” he said. “It never stops.”

When SOAR was founded in 1985 a devastating busi-ness slump had eviscer-ated the steel industry,

causing plant shutdowns and widespread unemployment.

It was a “frightful time” for the union, its members and retirees, recalled retired International President Lynn Williams, who led the USW during that stormy period and pushed for SOAR’s creation.

“If you can imagine an old mattress out in the junkyard with the springs popping up, I was like a guy lying on the springs trying to hold them all down,’’ Williams said. “And I didn’t have enough body parts to put a hand on this one, a hand on that one and a knee on another one. I didn’t have enough body parts to hold them all down.”

In the years between 1981 and 1985, the basic steel industry lost some 350,000 jobs in the United States. The crisis created a huge wave of early retir-ees and, in many cases, threatened their health care and pensions.

USW retirees actively supported food banks and other support services that were established to aid displaced steelworkers and their families.

Organizing for strengthBut Williams thought it was impor-

tant to find a more organized way to keep retirees active in the union, where they could collectively help him hold down at least two of those wayward springs – the pensions and health ben-efits they had earned through decades of hard and often dangerous work.

The initial response to SOAR after its establishment was more favorable than had been expected. The applications and dues – set at $1 a month – rolled in to Pittsburgh headquarters.

Marie Malagreca, a district staff representative and legislative coordina-tor, was tapped by Williams to be the first coordinator of SOAR. For recruiting help, she reached out to rank-and-file veterans of plant organizing campaigns.

“They were the old timers who worked in the mills and were the leaders of the local unions,’’ she said.” They

knew we had to join forces just as they did when they first organized the mills.”

There was some initial tension on establishing the organization. One fac-tion of retirees fought to be reinstated as full dues-paying members of the union with the ability to vote on contracts – an idea that was discussed and ultimately rejected as unwieldy.

Eventually, years later, the union’s leadership agreed to consult with SOAR and give its representatives input at the bargaining table during contract negotia-tions.

Williams asked retired International President I.W. Abel to become the first president of SOAR. Abel lent his consid-erable stature to the cause.

In addition to his experience running the union, Abel had experience in orga-nizing retirees. In the late 1970s, he and

other retired USW officers had moved to Sun City, Ariz., where they formed the Union Club, an activist group of retirees that lobbied for pro-labor legislation.

The Union Club eventually brought together retirees from dozens of different unions and set up 13 chapters in Arizona, where they boldly confronted right-wing political forces.

In the 1990s, as SOAR matured, there was a push to upgrade its status. Oliver Montgomery, named SOAR director in 1994 by then International President George Becker, campaigned to have SOAR recognized in the union’s constitution.

“We didn’t feel we were an integral part of the Steelworkers until they put us in the constitution,’’ Montgomery said.

That happened in 2000, when del-egates to the 30th International Conven-tion voted unanimously to amend the USW constitution to recognize SOAR as an affiliate.

The amendment also encouraged the formation of SOAR chapters, estab-lished direct communication between the local unions and local chapters and gave SOAR chapter leaders input into contract negotiations on SOAR issues.

At that convention, Becker for the first time seated the SOAR executive board and row officers as full-fledged delegates to the constitutional conven-tion. Williams, as SOAR president, was among those receiving a badge.

“This is a first for the union. Let’s welcome them,’’ Becker said as the convention delegates rose in standing ovation.

Today’s challengesToday, the biggest challenge SOAR

faces is maintaining and growing its membership, broadening the base with new retirees who have many options to take up their newly-found free time.

SOAR chapters can be effective, no matter their size.

“In some locals the SOAR chapter is 150 or 200 people who are active all the time. In some others, it’s just a hand-ful of retirees,” Gerard said. “But bring them together and you’ve got a movement.”

A USW video on SOAR can be viewed on our website at:http://www.usw.org/multimedia/video or on YouTube at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84V9ZFwgqUg

USW Photos

Lynn Williams

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To save jobs and industrial ca-pacity, the United States must dramatically change course, get tough with China on trade

and adopt an aggressive manufactur-ing policy with strong domestic content rules for all infrastructure projects.

That’s the message International Vice President Thomas Conway deliv-ered to the Congressional Steel Caucus, a bipartisan group of 100 members of Congress concerned about the health of the U.S. steel industry.

“The American people and USW members are angry and frustrated with business as usual in Washington, and they want political leaders to start solving our long-term problems and to create jobs and opportunity for their future,” Conway said.

Infrastructure spendingConway joined executives from

domestic steel manufacturers in urging

Congress to create jobs by rebuilding America’s aging infrastructure, enforc-ing existing trade laws and cracking down on currency manipulators like China.

In addition to infrastructure invest-ment and seeking a level playing field in trade, witnesses urged Congress to seek climate change and energy policies that meet the nation’s environmental needs while guaranteeing the steel industry’s international competitiveness.

USW members produce industrial products including steel, tires, glass and paper. We refine oil, mine copper and produce uranium. We build ships and make pipe for the oil industry.

“In short, USW members are the backbone of the nation’s industrial base,” Conway said. “They have always answered the call to make the best products in the world – our products can beat the competition anywhere so long

as the competition is fair and others play by the rules.”

Supporting green energy technolo-gies and investing in critical long-term infrastructure needs would propel our economy forward and help to save the world’s climate, Conway testified.

“For far too long we have been rely-ing on infrastructure that is too old and outdated while the world has caught up and is eating our lunch,’’ he said. “When Shanghai and Paris have truly state-of-the-art high speed rail but we can’t even fix old rails, that’s a serious problem.”

Currency manipulationU.S. Rep Tim Murphy, the caucus

vice chairman, said last year’s $226.8 billion trade deficit with China is due in part to its currency, the yuan, being undervalued by about 40 percent against the dollar.

If the yuan and other Asian cur-rencies were allowed to rise to proper

Nearly 1,900 union members, including 100 new hires, are glad to be back on the job after as much as a year on

layoff from US Steel’s Granite City, Ill., works.

The plant was idled in December 2008, when the recession hit U.S. manufacturing hard. The mill had never been completely cold since it was built in the late 1800’s. Partial production was resumed in mid-June 2009.

“I remember taking calls from our members asking when we were coming back and when our insurance would run out,” recalls Dan Simmons, president of Local 1899 on the steelmaking side of the plant. “Now, we’re running at full capacity, around the clock.”

Local 50 President Jason Chism, who represents workers in coke and iron making, believes the plant’s future is secure because of capital expenditures that enable the mill to produce its own power.

“Using by-products, we send coke gas and blast furnace gas to the co-generation plant.” Chism said. “The boiler house produces steam, and the steam produces enough electricity to power the plant.”

In addition to coke batteries and blast furnaces, the plant includes a two-vessel BOF shop, two continuous casters, a hot strip mill, pickle lines, a cold roll mill and a galvanize line.

With the addition of a heat recovery coke manufacturing facility built in a partnership with SunCoke Energy Inc., the facility is close to being self-suffi-cient with its coke supply.

“We have new state-of-the art coke batteries,” Chism said. “And the old batteries have been improved to meet all environmental standards. Our future looks bright.”

levels, Murphy said that would trim the trade deficit by about $100 billion to $150 billion annually, and create as many as 1.2 million jobs in the United States.

“We cannot sit idly by as China continues to break the rules by illegally subsidizing its exports and controlling its currency’s exchange rate,” he said.

More than 2.2 million manufactur-ing jobs in the United States have been wiped out since the great recession began in December 2007, Conway told the caucus.

But the bleeding has gone on for much longer than that. More than 5.5 million manufacturing jobs have disap-peared since October 2000. By October 2009 there were more people officially unemployed in manufacturing (15.7 million) than those working (11.1 mil-lion) in manufacturing.

“Show me a country that no longer produces goods, and I’ll show you a

country in decline; and that’s where America is headed,’’ Conway testified.

Conway called for immediate action on a $500 billion transportation plan introduced by U.S. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) to increase investments in high speed rail, highway construction and green technology development.

“We cannot hope to compete suc-cessfully in the global economy and maintain and expand our standard of living as a nation unless we make a serious commitment to repairing and expanding roads, bridges, ports, the electrical grid, public transit, high-speed rail, schools and water infrastructure,” Conway said.

“It will make business more cost-efficient and our goods more competi-tive; it will put people to work here and will create the biggest bang for taxpayer dollars in terms of stimulating demand for goods and services produced here.”

Photo by Steve Dietz

Thomas Conway


In its annual survey of chief execu-tive compensation, the AFL-CIO took aim at the big banks that triggered catastrophic financial

meltdown, and yet continued to stuff their own wallets and resist tougher financial regulations.

The AFL-CIO’s annual Execu-tive PayWatch this year exposed the egregious compensation and lobbying efforts against reform from the “Big Six” Wall Street banks: Bank of Amer-ica, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup.

These big banks helped cause the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression by trading financial derivatives that went sour when the real estate market declined. As the financial system started to recover, they went back to their old ways.

Together, the big banks paid out $145 billion in total 2009 executive compensa-tion. They spent millions of dollars lobbying against meaningful financial reform and have cut back on lending to con-sumers and small businesses.

Lobbying expenses upThe banking industry spent a total

of $50.4 million to lobby in 2009, a 5.4 percent increase from the previ-ous year, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Poli-tics, with nearly half coming from the six largest banks.

At the same time, millions of workers lost their jobs, their homes and their retire-ment savings in the financial crisis.

“For those at the top, it is business as usual and worse,” said Richard Trumka, president of the 11.5 million-member labor federation, the nation’s largest.

Instead of lending in their communities, banks have choked off much-needed credit. And instead of work-ing with Congress to develop good, common sense regula-tions to prevent another fi-nancial meltdown, big banks are spending millions of dol-lars lobbying to protect their own narrow interests.

No more inaction“People are angry and

won’t stand for inaction on fi-nancial reform,’’ said Karen Nussbaum, the execu-tive director of Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate.

Working America recently started a virtual protest website — “I Am Not Your ATM” — where people can take photos of themselves outside of bank storefronts, holding handmade signs express-ing their frustration with the industry.

The AFL-CIO’s website features case studies of the major banks, highlighting compensation

and the amount of money spent on lobbying Congress to fight financial regulatory overhaul.

The most highly compensated bank executive last year was

John G. Stumpf of Wells Fargo. He was paid $21.3 million, or 665 times the average worker pay last year of $32,048.

Wells Fargo repaid its $25 billion from the Troubled Asset Re-lief Program (TARP) in part by issuing more than $10 billion in new shares, ending government oversight of its executive compensation.

Wells Fargo boosted its lobbying expenses to $2.9 million in 2009, a 27 percent increase. The bank lobbied on regulatory reform issues that include consumer pro-tection standards for mort-gages, pay for performance, bank risk assessments, a proposed bankruptcy law amendment to allow judges to modify mortgages, deriva-tives market transparency and legislation on overdraft protection, credit cards and debit card fees.

Bank of AmericaKenneth Lewis, the

former chief executive of Bank of America, the na-tion’s largest bank, took a salary hit, receiving just $4.2 million last year. But he is set to receive $83 million in retirement benefits, the AFL-CIO noted.

Like Wells Fargo, Bank of America repaid its $45 billion in TARP funds, es-caping government oversight of its executive compensa-tion.

The bank spent $3.7 mil-lion to lobby Congress on issues including the creation of a consumer protec-tion agency for financial products, over-the-counter derivatives and credit default swaps, TARP oversight and executive compensation.

Richard Trumka rails against bankers on Wall Street.


Five years ago in March explo-sions rocked the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, as workers re-started equipment used to boost

the octane level of gasoline.Explosions and fire killed 15 workers

and injured another 180 that day. It was the deadliest refinery disaster in a decade and the worst U.S. industrial accident in 15 years.

Investigators uncovered “organi-zational and safety deficiencies at all levels,” stemming from years of corpo-rate focus on profits without adequate consideration of safety.

“The combination of cost-cutting, production pressures and failure to invest caused a progressive deteriora-tion of safety at the refinery,’’ said Carolyn W. Merritt, who chaired the U.S. Chemical Safety Board when it released findings of a two-year probe.

The BP disaster was supposed to be a defining moment in energy industry

safety. Yet near-misses and deadly trag-edies still occur with alarming frequency.

Oil rig explosionThe latest examples include an April

20 oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mex-ico that washed 11 workers overboard, and an explosion and fire on April 2 that killed seven workers at a Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, Wash.

“Whether it is a refinery, a construc-tion site or an oil rig, the oil industry never pays enough attention to health and safety,” said International Vice President Gary Beevers, who heads the USW’s oil bargaining program.

“There is a lack of preventive main-tenance with too much emphasis on running processes full out until some-thing breaks down completely,” Beevers added.

Rather than focus on safety, the in-dustry cited improving statistics on per-sonal injuries like slips, falls and sprains in the wake of the Tesoro tragedy.

International President Leo W. Gerard

called it “incredible” that the American Petroleum Institute (API) bragged about its safety record after the Anacortes fa-talities by citing OSHA injury and illness rates.

“Injury and illness rates are mis-leading and do not give the full picture of health and safety within the refining sector,” Gerard said. “There’s a differ-ence between a sprained ankle and an explosion that kills people.”

Deadly month for industryThis April, there were 40 deaths and

injuries in the petroleum industry. Many drew little attention. On April 14, three workers were injured in a fire at Exx-onMobil’s Baton Rouge, La., refinery. On April 19, the day before the oil rig exploded, a contractor died in a crane accident at a Motiva Enterprises refinery in Port Arthur, Texas. On April 29, two workers and a supervisor were injured in a fire at Valero Energy Corp.’s Memphis refinery.

Investigators who studied the BP disaster five years earlier pointed to significant downsizing in operations and training following budget cuts of 25 percent in both 1999 and 2003.

On that tragic day, abnormal pressure built up in a distillation tower during an equipment restart. Relief valves opened allowing highly volatile gasoline compo-nents to escape to a “blowdown” drum.

So much fuel flooded into the drum that its capacity was exceeded, causing liquid and vapor to shoot up a 113-foot vent stack like a geyser into the open air.

In no time, some 7,600 gallons of flammable liquid hydrocarbons were released onto the grounds of the refin-ery. An idling pickup truck ignited the vapor. The resulting fire storm destroyed 13 work trailers and damaged 27 oth-ers, killing and maiming workers in the vicinity.

Operators were unaware of the un-folding danger. Alarms and gauges that should have warned them of overfilling

equipment failed to operate. The glass on one external gauge was too blackened to see through.

Investigators later cited a lack of basic process indicators that could have provided operators with a better picture of what was happening.

After Texas City, OSHA launched a two-year inspection and emphasis pro-gram for petroleum refineries. At the end of the first year, inspections of 20 refiner-ies led to 456 total citations issued to refinery employers. The average number of citations per inspection was 23.

Most inspected refineries had good safety programs on paper, but implemen-tation in the facility was lacking, OSHA Enforcement Director Richard Fairfax told a 2009 safety conference.

“We were pretty shocked and dismayed by what we found,” he said. “The state of process management is frankly quite horrible.’’

Process safety can be defined as an engineering and management focus to prevent catastrophic incidents such as explosions and toxic releases. It also refers to an OSHA standard governing refineries and management systems put into place to address hazards.

The USW conducted an industry-wide survey on health and safety issues in the oil refining industry after BP. A full 90 percent of responding lo-cal unions reported at least one of the highly hazardous conditions that led to the Texas City disaster existed in their facility.

The 2007 report, “Beyond Texas City: The State of Process Safety in the Unionized U.S. Oil Refining Industry,” is available on the USW website. It can be accessed at http://assets.usw.org/oil-bargaining/pdf/beyondtexascity.pdf.

The survey also revealed that the industry’s response to calls for improve-ment since Texas City has been anemic.Generally speaking, refiners are required to maintain proper records, keep machin-ery and pipes in top condition, provide employees with adequate training, and to reduce employee fatigue, which can be a factor in safe operations.

OSHA’s process safety rules “are the bare minimum of what refiners are required to follow,’’ said Kim Nibarger, a USW health and safety specialist who in-vestigates refinery accidents.“It wouldn’t hurt them to go above and beyond.”

BP refineryMarch 23 ,200515 killed

Tesoro refineryApril 2, 20107 killed

Gulf Coast oil rigApril 20, 201011 killed


Kim Nibarger had just arrived at his parents’ house in Ana-cortes, Wash., for an Easter visit when the USW health

and safety specialist heard, through closed windows, the muffled sounds of an explosion – a deep whoop, whooop.

It was almost 12:30 a.m. on Good Fri-day, April 2. Nibarger stepped out on the porch and heard sirens coming from the Tesoro refinery about five miles away. He jumped in a car to get a closer look.

“I knew immediately what it was,’’ said Nibarger, a former USW local union

president who once worked as a chief operator at an adjacent refinery in Ana-cortes that is operated by Shell.

By dawn’s light, it was clear that a massive explosion at Tesoro had im-mediately killed three USW-represented workers and injured four other workers. Within three weeks, all seven would be dead from their injuries.

The explosion shook houses for miles around and sent flames darting into the sky. Some people thought it sounded like a jet engine; others described a boom and loud wind.

Felt like an earthquakeLisa Wooding, who lives a mile away,

told reporters that her windows rattled and her whole house shook like it was in an earthquake.

“I looked over at the refineries, and you could see big flames coming out,’’ she said. “There was black smoke and what appeared to be like red embers in the air …”

It was the worst refinery accident in terms of lives lost since the March 23, 2005 explosion at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, killed 15 contract workers and injured 170 others.

The three operators killed immedi-ately in the Tesoro blast and fire were Matthew C. Bowen, 31; Darrin J. Hoines, 43, and Daniel J. Aldridge, 50. Opera-tors Kathryn Powell, 29, and Donna Van Dreumel, 36, were the fourth and fifth victims to die.

Lew Janz, 41, a supervisor who had been a long-time member of the union, died on April 13 while hospitalized. Matt Gumbel, 34, died April 24 after a skin graft operation.

Investigations are being conducted by the USW, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board and the Washington state Depart-ment of Labor and Industries, among other agencies.

ERT on the sceneNibarger was on the scene from the

start. The USW’s Emergency Response Team (ERT) was alerted that morning and immediately began to work with Lo-cal 12-591 President Joe Solomon to pro-vide counseling, legal referrals and other assistance to the victims, their families and co-workers.

Refinery accident investigations are very personal for Nibarger. In this case, even more so because the victims of the Tesoro blast, some of whom he knew, were members of his home local union.

In 1998, he was part of a team of volunteers who respectfully removed the bodies of six co-workers killed in an explosion and fire at the adjacent Equilon Puget Sound Refinery in Anacortes, now operated by Shell.

It will likely take some time for investigators to fully understand what happened at Tesoro in Anacortes. The in-vestigation by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) into the 2005 BP explosion, its largest probe ever, took two years to complete.

The most dangerous time for a refin-ery generally isn’t when it is running, but when it is in transition, say bringing a unit back on line after service or repairs.

The Tesoro explosion took place at a heat exchanger that is part of a naphtha hydrotreater, which removes sulfur from low-octane naphtha as it is converted to a high-octane additive for gasoline.

The catastrophic failure apparently involved an operating heat exchanger located next to a heat exchanger that was being serviced and brought back on line.

Too many workers on siteAlthough the investigation is far from

complete, Nibarger said it appears that there were too many people in the blast area – some observing for training pur-poses. After BP, the CSB recommended that only essential personnel be involved in equipment startups.

The debris footprint at the accident site was relatively small. “So you know that whatever happened, it happened real quick,” Nibarger said.

The BP disaster five years earlier got the attention of the entire nation and led to calls for major reforms in refinery safety that largely went unheeded.

Yet dangerous incidents and near-misses continue unabated. Severe incidents have occurred at 5 percent of U.S. refineries in the last two years, said Robert Hall, the CSB investigation supervisor for the Tesoro accident. Of 18 active CSB investigations, seven of them are at refineries.

“It’s a trend we’re looking to stop,” Hall said.

Last year, the industry self-reported almost 50 fires in refineries throughout the United States, nearly one a week and any of them could have led to a disaster.

Nibarger believes the reported number is only a fraction of the actual incidents. “People have to realize that potentially disastrous events are occur-ring in these plants all the time,’’ Nibarg-er said. “It’s a much bigger problem than most people realize.”

Local organized memorialA memorial organized by Local 12-

591 for the Tesoro victims drew more than 800 mourners including family,

friends and union mem-bers. Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, U.S. Rep. Rick Lar-sen and International Vice President Gary Beevers were among those present.

Seven wreaths and seven large photos of the victims graced the stage at the An-acortes high school during the memorial. A representative of each of the families shared stories and their grief.

Local 12-591 President Solomon expressed the sentiments of many USW members. “They were and always will be my union brothers and sisters,” he said. “We love you; we miss you; and we will never forget you.”

Beevers, who heads the USW’s National Oil Bargaining program, read a brief statement of condolence from Inter-national President Leo W. Gerard.

“These brave men and women paid the ultimate price doing what we take pride in doing every day: going to work to earn an honest living to support our families and our communities,’’ Beevers said.

In his letter, Gerard told mourners that the best honor we can give their loved ones is to “fight like hell so that their deaths and injuries are not in vain.

“Please know that this union – with every ounce of its being – is working day and night for justice and more impor-tantly, for solutions so that tragedies like this never happen again,” he said.

Four days later, on Workers’ Memo-rial Day, Nibarger read the names of the fallen seven as the union paid tribute to those who died on the job in the previous year. With each name, a bell was rung and a candle extinguished.

Local 12-591 President Joe Solomon

Photo by Cliff DesPeaux


Historically, health and safety legislation has been written in the blood of workers.

The U.S. Bureau of Mines was created in 1910 with the mission of promoting safety in the wake of

the widely-publicized 1907 mine disaster at Monongah, W.Va., the nation’s worst, an explosion that killed 362 workers.

The Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA), signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, was propelled by the rev-elation in 1967 that almost a hundred uranium miners had died of lung cancer since the 1940’s and as many as 1,000 more cancer deaths were predicted.

Congress strengthened mine safety regulations twice, in 2008 and 2006, after 12 workers suffocated in a Sago, W.Va. mine in 2006.

Now, a series of explosions at energy facilities across the country in just three months this year has killed 53 workers. These began Feb. 7 with a blast at the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Connecticut, killing six workers; followed by the ex-plosion April 2 at the Tesoro refinery in Washington state that killed seven workers; the explosion three days later on April 5 in the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia that killed 29 workers, and, the April 20 blast on a Transocean Ltd. oil rig leased by BP in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 workers and threatened coastline in several states.

International President Leo W. Gerard told talk show host Ed Schultz that this dangerous way of doing business must be stopped – and one way to do that is criminally charge CEOs after wrongful workplace deaths. “I think we’ve got to reform OSHA. One of the things that I think has to happen is where you get this kind of blatant neglect or ignoring of the rules, we’ve got to have the ability to not just fine them but to charge the CEO with criminal negligence,” Gerard told Schultz.

As in the past, these deaths may result in safety legislation. Already they’ve prompted new consideration of a proposal to update OSHA, a bill called Protecting America’s Workers Act (PAWA). One Congressional committee conducted hearings just after the Upper Big Branch and Tesoro blasts and more are planned. President Obama has pledged that these workers will not have died in vain. At a memorial service for the Tesoro workers, a statement from Obama was read, including:

“As a lasting tribute we pledge our renewed vigilance to ensure that workplace conditions are safe and secure so every American can return home at the end of each workday.”

MSHA promises actionAt the first Congressional hearing, Joseph A. Main, as-

sistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health, reinforced that sentiment, saying of the workers killed at Upper Big Branch, “We owe them more than prayers. We owe them ac-tion. We owe them accountability.”

Main promised that the Mine Safety and Health Ad-ministration (MSHA) would act and said the agency would begin exercising its authority to temporarily close mines for safety violations.

The Obama administration, OSHA, MSHA and Secre-tary of Labor Hilda Solis all support passage of PAWA. The

first substantive update of OSHA in 40 years, it would signifi-cantly increase OSHA penalties and enforcement powers. For a willful violation, fines would rise from the current $70,000 to $250,000. PAWA would also improve whistleblower protec-tions, extend OSHA to cover public sector workers, expand the rights of workers and victims’ families and strengthen criminal penalty provisions.

This year’s report on workplace fatalities by the AFL-CIO, called “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect,” discusses the inadequacy of OSHA at length. In a country where 14 workers

are killed every day on the job, OSHA penalties are outdated, the report says. The largest fine OSHA can impose for a viola-tion is $7,000, a figure not increased in 20 years.

“OSHA penalties are too low to deter violations,” the AFL-CIO report says, “Even in the cases of worker fatali-ties, penalties are incredibly weak. For [fiscal year] 2009, the median initial total penalty in fatality cases investigated by federal OSHA was $6,750.”

Current criminal penalties under OSHA are paltry as well, the report says. They are misdemeanors and are limited to cases where a willful violation results in a worker death.

The issue of OSHA’s anemic enforcement powers was raised during hearings conducted by the Senate Health, Edu-cation, Labor and Pensions Committee just after the explo-sions in April at Upper Big Branch and Tesoro.

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat who chairs the com-mittee, said of the hearings, “What we will be looking at are weaknesses in our laws that provide incentives for employers to skimp and cut back on health and safety measures.”

OSHA Administrator David Michaels testified that OSHA is among those laws that are too weak. He noted, for example, that under OSHA, regulators cannot force employers to re-mediate workplace hazards while the employer is contesting the violation. Mining companies like Massey Energy, which owns the Upper Big Branch mine, have prevented enforce-ment measures like mine closures by appealing numerous citations.

For OSHA to accomplish its mission of protecting work-ers, Michaels told Harkin’s committee at the hearing, major changes must be made. Now, he said, employers too often compare the benefits of not complying with safety laws to the costs of complying, and if compliance outweighs penalties, they “opt to gamble with their workers’ lives.”

Michaels, the assistant secretary of labor of occupational safety and health, testified at Harkin’s hearing about refiner-ies. “We think they are extremely dangerous. We are extreme-ly concerned about oil refineries,” he told the committee.

He said no one is keeping track of the safety records of companies that operate refineries in multiple states. Under questioning by Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washing-ton state, where the Tesoro explosion occurred, Michaels said, “It is a weakness in the law.”

Industry fails to learnThe Tesoro explosion occurred almost exactly five years

after the catastrophic blast at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas that killed 15 workers and injured 170.

“It is obvious that this industry still has not learned from other refinery disasters and near-misses,” said International Vice President Gary Beevers.

The House Education and Labor Committee also is ex-pected to conduct hearings on workplace safety.

While the PAWA legislation moves through Congress, La-bor Secretary Hilda Solis launched new enforcement actions on her own. The Labor Department increased civil penalties and began a new Severe Violator Enforcement Program.

“For many employers, investing in job safety happens only when they have adequate incentives to comply with OSHA’s requirements,’ Michaels said when the Labor Depart-ment announced the new enforcement program late in April.

Date Type Company Location20101/4/10 F Tesoro Salt Lake City, Utah 1/4/10 F Hunt Sandersville, Ala.1/6/10 F Chevron El Segundo, Calif. 1/17/10 F Holly Corp., Navajo Artesia, N.M. 1/19/10 F ConocoPhillips Wilmington, Calif.1/22/10 F Motiva Norco, La. 1/30/10 F Murphy Oil Superior, Wisc. 2/4/10 F ConocoPhillips Belle Chasse, La.2/4/10 F-1 inj. Montana Great Falls, Mont.2/9/10 F-2 inj. Sunoco Philadelphia, Pa. 2/15/10 F ConocoPhillips Westlake, La. 2/20/10 E-1 inj. United Warren, Pa. 3/2/10 F-2 dead Holly Corp., Navajo Artesia, N.M.3/6/10 F ExxonMobil Beaumont, Texas3/9/10 F Motiva Port Arthur, Texas3/19/10 F Chevron El Segundo, Calif.4/2/10 F-7 dead Tesoro Anacortes, Wash.4/14/10 F-3 inj. ExxonMobil Baton Rouge, La. 4/19/10 A-1 dead Motiva Port Arthur, Texas4/29/10 F-3 inj. Valero Memphis, Tenn.

2009 1/12/09 E,F-4 inj. Silver Eagle Woods Cross, Utah2/13/09 F Calumet Shreveport, La.2/23/09 F BP Carson, Calif.2/27/09 F Valero Port Arthur, Texas3/7/09 A-1 dead Total Port Arthur, Texas3/10/09 F,E-1 dead Marathon St. James to Garyville, La. -3 inj. 3/21/09 F ConocoPhillips Linden, N.J. 3/25/09 LF Motiva Port Arthur, Texas3/29/09 F Sinclair Rawlins, Wyo. 4/5/09 F ConocoPhillips Linden, N.J. 4/9/09 F ConocoPhillips Sweeny, Texas4/15/09 F Flint Hills Resources Ingleside, Texas4/11/09 A-1 dead ExxonMobil Torrance, Calif.4/18/09 F Shell Deer Park, Texas4/23/09 A-1 dead Marathon Garyville, La. 5/17/09 F/E Sunoco Marcus Hook, Pa. 5/17/09 F Citgo Lemont, Ill.5/19/09 F BP Texas City, Texas5/19/09 F-1 inj. Flint Hills Resources Corpus Christi, Texas5/24/09 LF Flint Hills Resources Corpus Christi, Texas6/9/09 F Valero Norco, La. 6/21/09 F BP Toledo, Ohio 6/25/09 F Lion Oil El Dorado, Ark.7/4/09 F Valero Ardmore, Okla.7/8/09 F Flint Hills Resources Corpus Christi, Texas7/19/09 F-1 inj. Citgo Corpus Christi, Texas7/24/09 LF Teppco Texas City, Texas7/30/09 F Valero Delaware City, Del.8/1/09 F Sunoco Philadelphia, Pa.8/6/09 F ExxonMobil Baytown, Texas8/27/09 F Frontier Oil El Dorado, Kan.8/9/09 F Tesoro Mandan, N.D. 9/2/09 F Montana Refinery Great Falls, Mont.9/9/09 F ExxonMobil Baton Rouge, La. 9/14/09 F ExxonMobil Joliet, Ill. 9/21/09 F Valero Three Rivers, Texas9/25/09 F Tesoro Wilmington, Calif. 9/24/09 F Chevron Richmond, Calif. 10/7/09 F Valero Corpus Christi, Texas10/13/09 F Total Port Arthur, Texas10/21/09 F Tesoro Salt Lake City, Utah11/4/09 EF Silver Eagle Woods Cross, Utah11/18/09 A-1 dead BP North Slope, Ak.11/22/09 F Husky Energy Lima, Ohio12/4/09 E-1 dead Valero Texas City, Texas -2 inj.12/9/09 I ExxonMobil Baytown, Texas12/11/09 F Calumet Shreveport, La. 12/15/09 F Sunoco Philadelphia, Pa.12/24/09 F Valero Texas City, Texas12/24/09 F ConocoPhillips Billings, Mont.12/30/09 F Citgo Corpus Christi, Texas

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A two-day emergency meet-ing of USW leaders in the oil industry will be held in Pittsburgh starting June 15 to

discuss and develop an action plan to improve industry safety conditions.

The recent series of catastrophic fires, explosions and accidents in the en-ergy industry prove the need for USW members to get involved in pushing for reform.

Elements of the campaign could include lobbying for updated laws to protect all workers, pressing for stron-ger enforcement of existing safety regu-lations as well as improving individual attention to safety on the job.

USW members are encouraged to report health and safety problems to their health and safety committees and unit chairs of those committees.

Oil workers in particular should track every process safety incident and near-miss at their facilities – no matter how small – and report them to their local unions.

Contact Kim Nibarger at [email protected] for a copy of the Excel spreadsheet for incident report-ing. These reports should be e-mailed to Nibarger every two weeks at the same address.

Examples of reportable incidents include pump trips that lead to unit upsets or flaring; leaks in pipes, vessels and tanks, rotating equipment failures and safety system activations, including process relief valves.

Oil workers and members in other industries should be familiar with con-tract language that may give them the right to refuse unsafe work. That right is in every oil contract.

“Don’t be afraid to do so if the job jeopardizes the safety of you and your co-workers,” said International Vice President Gary Beevers, who heads the union’s oil sector.

Changes neededA high-level discussion is also

needed with the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to address safety problems and the changes

necessary to improve the situation, Beevers said.

We must also push to give enforce-ment authority to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent federal agency charged with accident investiga-tions, he added.

Beevers anticipates congressional hearings will be held in the future where USW oil workers would relate personal experiences with health and safety at their work sites. He also plans to reach out to the industry.

“In my opinion we need to meet with this industry and talk about process safety because we can’t continue to do what we’re doing now,” Beevers said.

To provide all workers with health and safety protections, Beevers urges USW members to lobby for passage of the Protecting America’s Workers Act (H.R. 2067, S.1580).

Increase employer penaltiesThe bill would increase civil and

criminal penalties imposed by the Oc-cupational Safety and Health Adminis-tration (OSHA) for job safety violations and ban “unclassified” violations that enable employers to avoid having a record of serious, willful and repeat OSHA violations.

Employers would be forced to cor-rect hazards as they contest citations or penalties. Workers would have the right to refuse unsafe work and pursue their case if OSHA fails to act timely.

Workers who report an injury or ill-ness would be protected from employer retaliation and be paid for time spent participating in OSHA inspections. Unions and workers would have the right to contest the classification of violations and proposed penalties and object to modifications of citations.

Workers would also have the right to be heard before any settlements are reached between OSHA and their em-ployer. If a worker is killed or incapaci-tated, family members would have the right to participate on their behalf.

On Wednesday, April 28, 2010, the United Steelworkers remembered the men and women who lost their lives while on the job in the past year as part of the union’s

annual observance of Workers’ Memorial Day.About 100 Steelworkers gathered at USW headquarters in

Pittsburgh to honor the 34 USW members who died on the job in the year since last April 28. Their names follow:

President Obama issued the first ever Presidential Proclamation on Workers Memorial Day this year on April 28. He

called on all Americans to participate in ceremonies and activities in memory of those who have been killed due to unsafe working conditions. The proclamation fol-lows:.

“This year marks the 40th anniversary of both the Oc-cupational Safety and Health Act and the Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act, which promise American workers the right to a safe workplace and require employers to provide safe conditions. Yet, today, we remain too far from fulfilling that promise. On Workers Memorial Day, we remember all those who have died, been injured, or become sick on the job, and we renew our commitment to ensure the safety of Ameri-can workers.

“The families of the 29 coal miners who lost their lives on April 5 in an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia are in our thoughts and prayers. We also mourn the loss of 7 workers who died in a refinery explosion in Washing-ton state just days earlier, the 4 workers who died at a power plant in Connecticut earlier this year, and the 11 workers lost in the oil platform explosion off the coast of Louisiana just last week.

“Although these large-scale tragedies are appalling, most workplace deaths result from tragedies that claim one life at a time through preventable incidents or disabling disease. Every day, 14 workers are killed in on-the-job incidents, while thousands die each year of work-related disease, and millions are injured or contract an illness. Most die far from the spot-light, unrecognized and unnoticed by all but their families, friends, and co-workers -- but they are not forgotten.

“The legal right to a safe workplace was won only after countless lives had been lost over decades in workplaces across America, and after a long and bitter fight waged by workers, unions, and public health advocates. Much remains to be done, and my administration is dedicated to renewing our nation’s commitment to achieve safe working conditions for all American workers.

“Providing safer work environments will take the concert-ed action of government, businesses, employer associations, unions, community organizations, the scientific and public health communi-ties, and individuals. Today, as we mourn those lost mere weeks ago in the Upper Big Branch Mine and other recent disasters, so do we honor all the men and women who have died on the job. In their memory, we rededicate ourselves to pre-venting such tragedies, and to securing a safer workplace for every American.”

5/4/09 Rick Cawston, 55 - Olympic Forest Products

5/8/09 Gary Godfrey, 60 - DTEE/EES Coke Battery, LLC

5/13/09 Charlie Knapp, 60 - Loren Cook Co.

5/22/09 John Larmand, 59 - Lemare Lake Logging

6/3/09 Burrell Oughton, 59 - Brick Wall Corp.

6/13/09 Stanley Jones, 45- Evan’s Dedicated Transportation Co.

6/24/09 Herbert(Herb) Derese, 58 - Huntsman Petrochemical

6/30/09 Otis Collier, 41 - MeadWestvaco

7/15/09 Mike Karkowski, 49 - Commercial Vehicle Group

7/26/09 Angela Smith, 37 - Arcelor Mittal

7/29/09 Cason Hosch, 29 - Mueller Copper Tube

8/28/09 Peter Uon, 23 - Mid-Atlantic Packaging Co., Inc.

9/15/09 Walter Lowe, 26 - Quincy Joist

9/27/09 Robert Stewart, 29 - Asarco

10/14/09 Dennis Woods, 50 - Material Sciences

10/28/09 Peter Lesmeister, 55 - Illinois Cement Co.

10/30/09 Brian “Paw” E. Hair, 50 - Robinson Industry

11/17/09 Will Spaulding, 51 - International Paper

12/1/09 Chris Stansbury, 29 - Infra Source

1/11/10 Danny Butler, 59 (died 1/25/10) - BF Goodrich

1/21/10 Jerry Evans, 39 - International Paper

2/14/10 Vance Dickson, 60 (died 2/15/10)- Severstal

2/16/10 Dominic Shorter, 46 - Seaspan Leroy Baker, 61 - Galland Henning Nopak

3/19/10 Eldon Perry, 56 - Iron Ore Co.

3/31/10 Don Mancuso, 55 - Goodyear

4/2/10 Matthew C. Bowen, 31 - Tesoro Refinery Darrin J. Hoines, 43 - Tesoro Refinery Daniel J. Aldridge, 50 - Tesoro Refinery Kathryn “K.D.” Powell, 29 - Tesoro Refinery Donna Van Dreumel, 36 - Tesoro Refinery Lew Janz, 41 (died 4/13/10) - Tesoro Refinery Matt Gumbel, 34 (died 4/24/10) - Tesoro Refinery

4/2/10 John Paget, 57 - Wheat City Metals

4/12/10 Bridgette Geist, 37 (died 4/15/10) - Victaulic Co.



The president of SCA Tissue North America was speaking frankly about the company, its profitability, marketing strate-

gies and capital spending plans to an audience, not of shareholders or Wall Street analysts but Steelworkers.

“We really value the relationship with the USW. It’s important to us,’’ Don Lewis said in opening a unique joint labor management meeting at SCA’s U.S. headquarters in Philadelphia this spring. “If you have ideas on how we can be better, we sure want to know about it.”

SCA’s union workers are part of the company’s growth strategy through a partnership with the USW that promotes cooperation over conflict. It started with PACE in 2003, and then grew after the two unions merged in April 2005.

The union agreed to the partnership

for no other reason than to improve the working lives of our members, said USW/SCA Council Chair Steve Brady.

“Our sole purpose is to represent our members, to make sure they have a work life that is fair and equitable, and to make sure they go home with the same ten fingers and ten toes they brought to work,” he told the meet-ing.

Looking for mutual benefitTo Denny Lauer, president of Local

2-1279 at SCA’s Neenah, Wis., plant, the partnership prompts both sides to look for solutions with mutual benefit.

“We force ourselves to constantly look for a high-road approach to solving problems instead of trying to outsmart and outwit as happens in a traditional relationship. We’re always looking for the win-win,’’ Lauer said. “It’s a very difficult thing to do at times.”

During recent negotiations over a master contract and local issues, a desire to protect wages and benefits in a stumbling economy led the parties to look at other options to moderate costs.

“Instead of looking at the low road, going after our wages and benefits, we took the high road, looking at different ways to work in the manufacturing setting, changing how we work,’’ Lauer added. “When you find that win-win, it’s good for the company and it’s also good for the union.”

SCA Tissue, a subsidiary of Swedish papermaker Svenska

Cellulosa Aktiebolaget, had little pres-ence in the United States before 2001 when it acquired Georgia-Pacific Tissue, making it the third largest tissue produc-tion company in North America.

In the years since, SCA has estab-lished itself as a leading producer of paper towels, napkins, and bath and facial tissues principally for the com-mercial away-from-home market. SCA has seven U.S. production facilities in Alabama, Arizona, New York and Wisconsin. All but one is unionized by the USW.

Neutrality agreementOne of the first initiatives of the

partnership was the adoption in 2003 of a neutrality agreement between SCA and PACE. The agreement allowed workers in Barton, Ala., to freely choose to organize through majority sign-up.

Since the Barton plant opened and unionized, wages have increased from roughly $12 an hour on average to

about $20 an hour before bonus programs, local union officers said.

Bryan Dyar helped to organize the Alabama plant as a PACE member, and is now involved in the partnership as a regional HR manager for SCA at Barton.

“It’s unbelievable to be in a business where you have the union so involved,” Dyar said during a break in the Phila-delphia meeting. “To me, it’s a dream come true. But the bottom line is it cre-ates a better business result.”

The union typically sits in on monthly business update meetings. A joint advisory committee of union and management employees meets quarterly to review progress and tackle problems.

Employees are expected to make decisions, work with minimal direction, control the flow of work and work as a team to solve problems and devise bet-ter ways of working.

The idea is to build a work force that will, for example, fix a problem with production machinery at first notice rather than letting it build into a long and expensive breakdown.

Engaged work force“We have an engaged work force

and we’re kind of betting on the come,’’ said James Carmichael, SCA’s vice president of human resources, using a poker term. “We’re going down the line of negotiating fair contracts, operating fairly and we believe that the productiv-ity that comes from the work force will more than overcompensate.”

The financial incentive for workers to participate comes in a profit-sharing, or gain-sharing program called Equi-Share that can boost take-home pay.

“If the company makes money, we make money. It’s an actual equitable division of it,’’ said Allen Hyde, vice president of Local 9-1535 at Barton. “And the bonus checks have been quite nice as far as I know throughout the country.”

Hyde worked as a USW member at Reynolds Metals Co. before joining SCA and sees a positive difference.

SCA “has laid their cards on the table. You go in knowing where the company actually stands financially and everything from the get-go,” he said.

“I go back years with Reynolds where we fought high performance work systems and fought team-based

work systems,’’ he said. “Now, being in it and seeing what’s working, I

think this is the way we as Steel-workers are going in the future.”

Helping each otherTony Tomasovic, of Local

1478 at South Glens Falls, N.Y., said he sees a lot more cooperation on the shop floor. In the paper mill where he

works, a crew from one ma-chine used to not help a crew

from another. That has changed.“The guys watch out for each

other. They work with each other, back and forth on the machines. It’s like, hey, we’re on one big team here,” he said. “We back each other up.”

The pursuit of quality and cost sav-ings can sometimes mean standing up to a salaried employee, engaging in some back and forth talk and suggesting bet-ter alternatives to a proposed move.

“With this EquiShare, it’s big,” Tomasovic said. “If a salaried employee is trying to make a decision that’s not cost effective, we’ll not let him do it just to satisfy him.”

Local 1478 President Keith Baker agreed that EquiShare drives a lot of the improved cooperation and other changes he has seen at work.

“If we all do better, then we know that the pot of gold gets bigger. One hand washes the other. You help me. I’ll help you,” Baker said. “It’s a process that never stops. It’s like anything else. You can always improve.”

USW Photo

Steve Brady

JamesCarmichael


Hundreds of Rapid Response activists celebrated 15 years of success and readied for important work ahead at their

annual conference, held this May in Washington, D.C.

The USW’s best activists from around the nation heard during the con-ference that Rapid Response is needed now more than ever.

“We’ve shown time and time again that Rapid Response works – whether it’s fighting back against unfair trade deals, fighting for health care for all or fighting for our jobs,” said Tim Waters, the USW’s Rapid Response director.

“Over 15 years, you’ve helped change the course of history,” he told conference attendees. “Now we need to take Rapid Response to the next level for the next 15 years and beyond.”

The message was

echoed by many speakers, from Inter-national President Leo W. Gerard to AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka and MSNBC’s Ed Schultz.

Schultz told conference goers that in today’s divisive political environment where big-money lobbyists dominate and lies often are spread on cable television that working people cannot afford to sit silent.

“We have to move because this is a war,” Schultz said, reminding delegates about the attack from greedy corpora-tions and others who are against working families. “We’re in a war for the truth.

“This is a defining moment for Rapid Response, not just for Steelworkers, but Rapid Response now has to be embraced by every American,” Schultz said.

The 600 Rapid Response conference at-tendees were among the more than 1,000 union members who gathered

at Capitol Hill at a rally to thank law-makers who voted for health care reform and stood up to big insurance companies.

“We thank these members for their courage and we dare anyone to run a campaign to repeal health care for work-ing families, seniors and other Ameri-cans who so desperately need it,” Gerard said. “We dare them to take away fixing the ‘donut hole’ that forces retirees to choose medicine over food or to take away health care for adult kids who want to go to college.”

Decked out in navy blue and gold “Rapid Response” shirts, USW members held signs with messages such as “Hope and Change Are Working for Me” and “Middle Class America Thanks You.”

Many members from a variety of other unions also attended the rally, chanting “Thank You,” and “Health Care for All!”

Lynda Hiller of Coplay, Pa., is a breast cancer survivor who lost her health insurance when she could no longer work because of the cancer and

her husband was laid off after 28 years working as a truck driver. She told her heartbreaking story of how crushing medical bills and unemployment have cost her family nearly everything.

“I am so grateful that other families won’t have to go through what we did,” she said.

Among the lawmakers who at-tended the rally were House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Major-ity Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), and Reps. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.). AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka also attended.

Pelosi said getting health insurance

reform passed was like climbing over a tall fence or pushing open a locked gate. She thanked Rapid Response and other USW activists for working to make it a success.

“All of you helped push open that gate and we got to the other side and now we’re in a different place,” Pelosi said.

Need to Fight in November Rally speakers told union members

that with so much misinformation about health insurance reform and other issues going around that it’s more important than ever that working people vote for lawmakers who stand with them.

Other issues such as jobs, trade, reigning in Wall Street, workplace safety and the Employee Free Choice Act are at

stake, they said.“We are just six months away from an

election that is going to make history one way or the other,” Durbin said. “Let’s keep moving forward. We need your help in November. Let’s win it.”

Trumka and Gerard said it took cour-age for lawmakers to stand with working families on health reform instead of big insurance companies that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try to defeat the bill.

“We thank them for supporting us, and we want them to know it’s payback time. You supported us, now it’s our turn,” Trumka said. “We will work hard-er than ever. We will work smarter than ever. And we will win in November.”

Steelworkers were among the more than 3,000 people who attended the Good Jobs, Green Jobs national conference in

Washington, D.C., in early May. Labor and environmental leaders,

top politicians, business executives and others called for increased investment, innovation and action for good American jobs that also help our environment and curtail climate change.

International President Leo W. Gerard was among the featured speakers at the conference hosted by the Blue Green Alliance, a partnership of the Steelwork-ers, the Sierra Club and eight other labor unions.

Gerard said recent work-related acci-dents like those at the USW-represented Tesoro refinery in Anacortes, Wash., and the oil rig explosion and spill off the coast of Louisiana shows that labor and environmental issues are connected in many ways and that it’s everyone’s

responsibility to work for progress on both fronts.

“Our generation has a responsibility to the next,” Gerard said. “Our genera-tion is going to be the one to leave the worst mess in history, or our generation is going to be the one to leave the most opportunity in history. I want to be the second one.”

The Blue Green Alliance has built a movement representing more than 8 mil-lion workers and environmentalists that must seize the momentum and continue pushing for legislative action for the jobs of the future, particularly manufactur-ing the parts needed in clean energy and other green industries. There are many green jobs opportunities in all of USW’s sectors, including pulp, paper and for-estry. For example, current certification standards for sustainability ensure that there is a net positive replacement for harvested timber. Every new tree planted captures more carbon, acting as a carbon

sink. When more trees are planted than harvested there is a positive impact on carbon reduction - unlike the use of fossil fuels that simply release carbon.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi echoed Gerard’s statements and lauded him as one of the nation’s leaders in pushing for good, green jobs.

“In Congress, we have stood strong in the drive for good, green jobs,” she said. “We’ve said all along that clean energy is about four things: jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.”

Photos by Steve Dietz

Nancy Pelosi Steny Hoyer

Leo W. Gerard

Tim WatersRally attendees


What this means right now for union-negotiated plans:You will NOT lose your union-negotiated private health insurance plans because of reform. • Nothing in this bill changes our right to collectively bargain health plans and employers cannot drop existing plans because of reform.Current collectively-bargained plans are grandfathered, meaning much of the new law • does not apply to those plans until after they expire. NO high-cost benefits will be taxed until at least 2018, and the impact of the tax on in-• surers was significantly lessened through a variety of changes and exemptions pushed by our union and other unions.

Keeping in mind the grandfathering of collectively-bargained plans, here’s how reform will eventually help you and your family:

Children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied health insurance • coverage. In the coming years, pre-existing condition discrimination will become a thing of the past for everyone. Health care plans will allow young people to remain on their parents’ insur-• ance policy until their 26th birthday. Insurers will be banned from dropping people when they get sick. •

Here’s how reform will help our retirees:Effective January 1, 2011, co-pays for preventive screenings will be elimi-• nated to help older Americans more quickly and affordably identify and treat diseases such as cancer and diabetes. The bill will provide help for early retirees by creating a temporary re-insurance pro-• gram to help VEBAs and employers offset the costs of providing health care benefits for early retirees age 55 to 64. The bill will reduce costs associated with the Medicare Part D “donut hole” that • forces seniors to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for prescriptions.

Reform immediately begins to lower health care costs for millions of small businesses:

This year, small businesses that choose to offer coverage will begin to receive • tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums to help make employee coverage more affordable. Hundreds of USW employers may be eligible for this credit.

The impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on future contract negotiations will depend upon the terms of your labor agree-

ment and the current design of your health care plan. Because USW negotiated contracts and health care benefit designs vary from one local union to another, it is difficult to anticipate the specific impact the law will have on your contract.

The USW is training staff representatives on the details of the act and how to address the act in negotiations, so your staff representative will be well prepared to address the impact on your contract when negotiations begin.

Right to bargain remainsThe act does not take away the union’s right to bargain

over health care, so health care will continue to be a sig-nificant issue at the bargaining table.

USW staff has been given guidance on how to deal with reform in current bargaining. If you’re in bargaining or about to bargain, you should discuss this with your lo-cal officers or staff representatives.

If you have questions involving the Steelworkers Health and Welfare Fund, please contact your staff rep.

We know everyone wants answers now but we are embark-ing on a new journey and must be patient. If the law works and discriminatory insurance industry practices are reined in and all employers cover their workers or pay penalties, then costs should decline over time. It’s important to keep in mind that to the ex-tent that costs decline, it should help us at the bargaining table.

Lowering health care costsNo one can say what things will look like four years from

now when the majority of the provisions in the act go into effect, or even a year from now. We hope that reform will give workers more bargaining power. We hope that reform will give workers more leverage by lowering health care costs for everyone and in turn making our businesses more competitive globally.

As it is with all new legislation, the reality is that we also have to wait and see how rules and regulations are written, how the insurance industry responds and what sort of stance employ-ers take. Again, your union is here for you every step of the way and is closely monitoring this issue and constantly educating its staff and leaders.

You can be certain that the heated debate around health insurance reform will continue as this fall’s midterm elections approach.

It is important that USW members and retirees judge the Patient Protection and Af-fordable Care Act for what it actually says and does and not what they see and hear on cable news talk shows.

Here’s a look at some of the myths and realities according to a March 23, 2010, As-sociated Press Fact Check:

MYTH: The health care overhaul is going to cost you more.

President Obama says that once new competitive insurance markets open for

business, in 2014, individuals buying coverage comparable to what they have today will pay 14 to 20 percent less. Family coverage costs about

$13,400 a year, so that could be real savings.

This is a first step in reform-ing a very broken system run

by profit-driven insurance companies. And as the AP

points out, the U.S. popu-lation is aging and medi-cal science is constantly evolving. Premiums

for some people will likely be lower than they would have been without the bill.

One thing we know for sure is that the path we were on was unsustainable. Even a slowing of the pace of projected premium increases is better than what we would have been stuck with. Had we not done anything, premiums were projected to go up nearly 9 percent a year. By 2019, the average health insurance premium for a family was expected to hit $30,803 a year, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

Let’s put reform in perspective: In 2007, the United States spent $2.2 trillion on health care, which represents $7,421 per person or 16 percent of our entire economy, or GDP. Last year, health care expenditures were about 18 percent of GDP. Without reform, by 2030 health care costs would balloon to 28 percent of GDP. By 2040, 34 percent. We had to do something.

MYTH: Obama has put the nation on a slippery slope toward socialism.

Government’s role in health care has been steadily growing since Medicare and Medicaid were established 45 years ago. Even if Republicans were to take control of Washington and repeal this bill, government would still be on track to pick up more than half the nation’s

health care tab by 2012, according to a report this spring from Medicare.

MYTH: You will be forced to pay for other people’s abortions.

This is simply not true. Americans will be able to decide if they want to join a plan that covers abortions or not. If you do, the costs of paying for abortions would be spread over all the enrollees in the plan — no differently from how other medical pro-cedures are handled, except a policy holder would have to write a separate check for it.

People who don’t want to pay for abor-tion could simply pick a plan that doesn’t offer it.

MYTH: The bill will lead to government health care rationing.

The legislation sets up a research center to compare the effectiveness of medical treatments.

The legislation specifies that the re-search findings cannot be used to impose mandates, guidelines or recommendations for payment, coverage, or treatment — or used to deny coverage.

President Obama on March 23, 2010, signed historic health insurance reform legislation. While making big progress, reform will be gradual and change will

occur over time. It will help most Americans gain access to health care coverage and it secures qual-ity health care for those lucky enough to already have it.

During this complex and important time of transition, the USW is working hard to dissect every word of the legislation to determine what the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act means for you and your families.

For the most part, it will be months or even years before you notice any change at all. But here’s what we can tell you today:

Photo by Wix Pix

As the federal government prepares to spend big bucks to jump start the construc-tion of new nuclear power

plants, the USW is fighting to ensure our tax money creates jobs here, not overseas.

The U.S. Energy Department has $18.5 billion to offer in loan guarantees for the construction of nuclear power plants in the United States, and Presi-dent Obama is seeking to triple that number to $55 billion as part of his 2010 budget proposal.

The federal guarantees, authorized by Congress in 2005, are seen as essen-tial for construction of any new reactor because of the huge expense involved.

American taxpayers, however, should not bear the burden of loan guarantees if the jobs to be created by them are in another country, said Inter-national Vice President Tom Conway.

Georgia loan approvalSo far, the government has ap-

proved an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to utility giant Southern Company for the construction of two reactors in Georgia.

If those reactors move forward, they would be the first constructed in the United States since the Three Mile Is-land nuclear accident near Harrisburg, Pa., in 1979 halted new orders.

The project in Georgia would create thousands of temporary construction jobs and about 800 permanent jobs. However, some of the central compo-nents, including the reactor vessel and key elements of heat exchangers, can only be obtained from certified steel mills in Japan and South Korea.

China, The New York Times re-ported, has also constructed a factory to produce large steel containment vessel plates for reactors as part of its ambi-tious energy development plans.

International President Leo W. Gerard alerted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of our concern that reactor parts could come from over-seas, jeopardizing safety and jobs in the United States.

Gerard asked the NRC, which over-sees the safety of nuclear reactors, to make public all of the components that would be used in the Southern Company’s new reactors.

“Sourcing key components for

nuclear facilities from foreign nations – China most specifically – could put in jeopardy our citizens’ safety and undermine efforts to promote economic growth and job creation,’’ Gerard told NRC Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko.

It makes no sense to manufac-ture components overseas, where our regulators have less ability to monitor safety. In particular, it makes no sense to source parts from China, which has a spotty track record on product safety.

In his letter to the NRC’s Jaczko, Gerard cited unsafe and hazardous products that have been exported by China including drug ingredients, ve-hicle tires, highway bridge components with weak welds and children’s toys with dangerous levels of lead.

Acknowledging that nuclear energy will continue to be a major source of power around the world, Gerard said its future development in the United States depends on having the full support of the American people.

“The loan guarantees are intended to accelerate development of nuclear power. And, at a time of high unem-ployment and a continuing economic crisis, we need to utilize every policy tool available to create jobs and pro-mote domestic economic growth,” Gerard said.

Safe, clean nuclear plantsIn his State of the Union address,

President Obama portrayed the deci-sion to boost the loan guarantees as part of a broader strategy to increase employment and generate clean energy.

The Georgia project, using reactor designs by Westinghouse, a U.S.-based company owned by Japan’s Toshiba Corp., calls for 11 thick steel strips 13 feet wide and 130 feet long to be stacked on top of one another.

American mills are not equipped to manufacture the 13-foot strips, Westinghouse claims, adding that it is considering redesigning so American mills can compete for the project. One possibility is to use steel strips 11 feet wide, stacked 13 high.

Actual construction in Georgia is still years away. The Southern Compa-ny applied for a license to build and op-erate the reactors more than two years ago. The application, one of many under consideration, is not expected to be approved until 2011 or 2012.

Construction workers are rais-ing the roof at the Firestone Agricultural tire plant in Des Moines, Iowa.

It’s all part of a three-year expansion project that will increase the number of USW-represented jobs at the 65-year-old plant and, hopefully, secure the facility’s future.

Nashville-based Bridgestone Ameri-cas is plowing $77 million over three years into the agricultural tire factory to meet a growing demand for ever larger radial farm tires.

“Number one, it means job secu-rity for our members,’’ said Local 310 President Al Skinner. “It also looks like they’re going to expand production enough to hire more people.”

The expansion will add about 50 jobs to the plant’s work force of approximate-ly 1,400 by year’s end.

As part of the USW’s contract, laid-off workers from other Bridgestone plants such as the idled consumer tire plant in LaVergne, Tenn., get first prefer-ence for the jobs.

“Hopefully, we’re going to get a bunch of those guys and they’ll come in as regular full-time people, not new hires,’’ Skinner added.

The investment came to Des Moines even though the company had, at one point, told the union it was consider-ing expanding production in a different facility overseas. An estimated 20 to 30 percent of production is exported.

“This is another example of how highly-skilled USW members given the tools and opportunities can work with management to effectively compete globally,’’ said International Secretary-

Treasurer Stan Johnson, who oversees the USW’s Rubber/Plastics Industry Conference.

The agricultural tire business has been increasing output to meet demand, while the passenger tire business has had a tougher time because of the automobile industry downturn.

The 62-acre factory in Des Moines has been providing agricultural tires and jobs since it opened in 1945. With the expansion, Skinner said he hopes it will now provide employment for the children of today’s USW members at the plant.

“With the economy the way it is, these kinds of manufacturing jobs just aren’t out there,” he added.

Firestone brandThe plant has been owned by Bridge-

stone since 1988. The products made in Des Moines are sold under the Firestone brand name in North America.

Bridgestone said the expansion will allow the company to meet the farm equipment industry’s growing demand for high capacity radial farm tires in North America and globally.

The project is already underway. The investments are being made in core manufacturing areas of tire building, cur-ing and related support equipment.

“It’s not in regular production yet but they have kicked some tires off and they are pretty nice tires,’’ Skinner said.

Cranes were used to raise part of the roof by 10 feet to accommodate a curing line room that will process big agricul-tural tires that are about seven feet tall. Huge pits bigger than a house have been dug in the ground for heavy machinery.

The goal is to build tires that are strong enough to carry huge farm equipment yet gentle enough to minimize soil compaction that can cause spring floods and environmentally damaging fertilizer runoff.

Farms are getting larger and more productive. In Iowa, for example, farms are twice the size they were 50 years ago and they produce between four and five times more corn and soybeans.

Farm equipment is also much larger today. Tractors now run up to 60,000 pounds, some ten times the weight of machines used five decades ago. Com-bines used to harvest wheat and other ce-reals can be 40,000 pounds and capable of carrying bins holding 360 bushels, or about two acres of corn production.

Farmers can use grids and satellite-based positioning systems to guide them through fields that have a lot more plants per acre than in the past. An acre or corn can hold about 32,000 plants.

Iowa has both farms and farm equip-ment makers. John Deere operates a plant near Des Moines that employs about the same amount of people as the Firestone factory.

Bridgestone said the investment will allow Firestone to maintain its market position, continue to develop advanced solutions and supply improved tire tech-nology to the agricultural industry.

“We make good quality tires here. It is good security for the members,” added USW-BFS Contract Coordinator Randy Boulton. “It shows confidence in our work force and it’s a good business deci-sion on the company’s part.”

2 8 U S W @ Wo r k • S p r i n g 2 0 1 0 U S W @ Wo r k • S p r i n g 2 0 1 0 2 9AP Photo/Seth Perlman


Charles Jones was 20 in 1950 when he started working at Reznor, a maker of heating and air conditioning systems

now known as Thomas & Betts Corp. He stayed 60 years before he put down his tools.

Jones, 80, officially retired in April from the plant in Mercer, Pa., with his six decades of service interrupted only by a tour of duty with the U.S. Marines Corps.

“Sixty years at one plant is unbeliev-able,’’ said Tom Kutlus, the president of USW Local 5306, which represents about 200 employees.

The plant and employees celebrated “Charlie Jones Day” on April 24, the 60th anniversary of his hiring, with spe-cial blue T-shirts marking the event.

When Jones started, the plant was operated by the Reznor family that had founded the business in 1888. The facil-ity went through several owners in his tenure and was sold to Memphis-based Thomas & Betts in 1993.

No stranger to work“I enjoy what I’m doing, or I

wouldn’t have been here this long. And the best part is I get paid for it,” he said ten years ago on his 50th anniversary.

One thing is certain. Jones was no

stranger to work. He was one of six chil-dren born on a rural Pennsylvania dairy farm. His father both worked the farm and mined coal.

At 14, Jones was using a horse-drawn wagon to help neighboring farmers load their silos with corn. In high school, he worked for a local sawmill cutting logs with a two-man crosscut.

He worked for a time at a rail car manufacturing company repairing hop-per chutes for coal cars before joining Reznor on April 24, 1950, starting in the shops. In those days, he would milk cows before going to work.

By 1951, he was a U.S. Marine sta-tioned for two years in North Carolina.

Once out of the service, he returned to his home-town of Stoneboro, Pa., and his job.

Jones has been married to Eva “Louise” Anderson for 55 years. The way he tells the story, he asked her out in high school and she refused. Later, on leave from the Marines, he met up with Louise again and asked if she was seeing anyone. She said no and he said, “How about Saturday night?

“It went from there,” he said. “We just clicked right off the bat.”

Specialty parts his specialtyJones has spent the last dozen or

so years making specialty items, including replacements for parts damaged on the line and parts for products that are no longer manu-factured.

“It was strictly hand-forming, laying out the piece and making it from scratch,’’ he said. “It kept me in shape. It was physical work.”

Since he had spent so much of his life at work, Jones resolved a long time ago to take pride in what he was doing and to try to see something good in everything.

His advice to those starting out in the work force: “Look at the posi-

tive in everything, and get out of work what you can, and realize that things are not maybe going to go the way you want every day, and do whatever you can to push things in the right direction.”

His wife’s health was a factor in his decision to retire. They had three chil-dren, and enjoy time with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, a few of whom live at home.

“Our family is what we really care about,” Jones said. “We enjoy them. I won’t be bored. I’m going to have to live another 20 years to get all the things done that I’ve got to do.”

Recently, in a room packed with hundreds of the United Steelworkers’ best activists, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz made a

passionate case for why it’s so important for workers to have a trusted source in the media.

There’s the hundreds of conservative, corporate-funded, right-wing television and radio talk shows that flood Ameri-can airwaves with mistruths and myths, compared to just a handful of progres-sive shows, he pointed out.

There’s the ugly political and profit-driven motivation to stop workers – and the elected officials who help them – from rising up in this country, Schultz told the crowd.

There’s the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that will allow virtually un-limited corporate spending in elections, giving multinational corporations and their political allies an unprecedented platform, Schultz said.

And then there’s this fact, according

to Schultz: “They lie. The cameras are on – the Republicans lie.”

The 500 activists attending the Rapid Response conference where Schultz was speaking stood, cheered and clapped in agreement.

“I believe in who you are and what you stand for,” Schultz said. “I believe that at every level we have to be Ameri-cans and take care of each other.”

International President Leo W. Ge-rard, who’s appeared on Schutlz’ radio and TV show multiple times to discuss union and worker-related issues, says working families have a great ally in the veteran host.

“Ed’s shows should be required viewing and listening for every working family in America – for every Ameri-can,” Gerard said. “He gives us a fair opportunity to tell our story, to talk about issues that affect us and millions of families, and unlike other talk show hosts, he sticks to the facts.”

Schultz, who also hosts the syndi-

cated radio program, “The Ed Schultz Show,” is a 30-year veteran of broad-casting. He’s often dubbed the industry’s top-rated progressive talker.

Schultz has won multiple awards, in-cluding two Marconis and a prestigious Peabody Award. He’s also an author and devoted family man. He and his wife Wendy have six children.

On the Radio: “The Ed Schultz Show” airs live weekdays from noon - 3 p.m. ET with a weekly audience of more than 3 million listeners on 100 stations across the country. For more info: http://wegoted.com/

On the TV: “The Ed Show” airs weekdays from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC. For more info: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30031533/

Photos courtesy of Thomas & BettsCorp.

Employees celebrate Charlie Jones Day.

Charlie Jones


Best Government Money Can Buy?Health insurers, corporations and big banks

carpeted the halls of Congress with billions of greenbacks to sway votes on the two most contro-versial issues in recent months – health insurance and Wall Street reform.

The health sector – including the drug industry, doctors and hospitals – coughed up $1.7 billion to lobby Congress and federal agencies since 2006 – more than any other sector of the economy. And, as it turned out, health insurers, which had promised the Obama administration they would not oppose reform after cutting a deal early in the process, secretly gave the U.S. Chamber of Com-merce between $10 million and $20 million last year to resist the measure.

Then, as Congress took up Wall Street reform, more than 1,500 lobbyists, bankers, and execu-tives of financial companies descended on the Senate Agriculture Committee, which was dealing with the bill. Edward Wyatt and Eric Lightblau of The New York Times wrote in an April 19 story titled, “A Finance Overhaul Fight Draws a Swarm of Lobbyists:”

“A main weapon being wielded to fight the battle, of course, is money. Agriculture Committee members have received $22.8 million in this elec-tion cycle from people and organizations affiliated with financial, insurance and real estate companies – two and a half times what they received from agriculture donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.”

Corporations: Same as an Average JoeThe lobby advantage banks and corporations

already enjoy was inflated by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. It is the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case in which the court overturned 60 years of precedent to grant to corpo-rations the same free speech rights constitutionally guaranteed to human beings who are U.S. citizens. This allows corporations – including those fat cat Wall Street banks – to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.

The Washington Post wrote that the Supreme Court’s majority in this case made “a mockery of some justices’ pretensions to judicial restraint.” That includes Chief Justice John Roberts who dur-ing his confirmation hearings assured lawmakers of his reticence to overturn precedent, saying, that it is “a jolt to the legal system when you over-rule a precedent on the bench.”

The ruling is not limited to corporations. It includes political contributions by unions and non-profit groups. But in the real world, the money unions and non-profits have to lobby amounts to pocket change for corporations. In just the first quarter of this year, The Wall Street Journal deter-mined the 12 largest financial services companies collectively made $1.4 million in political donations.

President Obama condemned the ruling in his

State of the Union address, saying it was a “huge blow to our efforts to rein in this undue influence.” Afterwards, Justice Roberts made it known he was irritated that the president used his free speech right to make the remarks while the justices sat in the audience.

Money Still Talks Ian Millhiser of the Center for American

Progress Action said the Citizens United ruling, “does far more than simply provide Fortune 500 companies with a massive megaphone to blast their political views to the masses; it also empow-ers them to drown out any voices that disagree with them.”

Here’s what U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat, said about Citizens United, “The law itself will be bought and sold. It would be political bribery on the largest scale imaginable.”

Even The New York Times said in an editorial about the decision, “The Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century.”

As Republicans and corporate lobby groups praised the ruling as a victory for free speech rights, Democrats in Congress began writing legis-lation requiring reporting of corporate donations. A bill called the DISCLOSE Act, which would limit and expose political spending by corpora-tions and groups, was introduced late in April.

A preview of the future under Citizens United occurred during big bank lobbying to prevent regulation of derivatives, the financial instruments used to gamble the U.S. economy into the poor-house.

Republican leaders went to Wall Street in April to solicit help in funding Republican campaigns this fall. The following week Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared his opposition to the financial reform bill and was instrumental in delaying its consideration.

Democrats are hoping the DISCLOSE Act – for Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections – will be passed before the fall campaigning starts in earnest. It would bar foreign corporations, their domestic subsid-iaries and government contractors with more than $50,000 in work from spending to influence elections. It would require that the top five donors for an ad be listed. Money transferred to front groups by corporations for campaign ads would be considered campaign spending and subject to disclosure rules. And corporations would have to disclose political expenditures to shareholders in financial reports.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics praised the DISCLOSE Act as a way to “ame-liorate the most devastating effects of Citizens United.”

But the Chamber of Commerce condemned it and not one Senator from the Republican-Party-of-No co-sponsored it.


Workers Lose Their Shirts

Ohio Democrats have posted an Internet campaign ad starring a group of shirtless Steelworkers. It was produced in response to a Republican ad de-

picting a bare-chested Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate.

In the Internet video, the union members complain that Ohio voters “lost their shirt” under policies promot-ed by Republican Senate nominee Rob Portman when he was a budget director and trade advisor for former President George W. Bush. To see the video, go to www.ohiodems.org or www.portmantooktheshirtoffmyback.com.

A week earlier, the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee put up an Internet spot featuring an image of a shirtless Fisher taken from an old documentary film. The Republican video, accompanied by provocative music and filled with sexual double-entendres, was removed from You-Tube because of complaints.

The Ohio Democratic Party website also invited viewers to “send a shirt to Rob Portman” or to direct that the party send one to the Republican to “let him know how many people refuse to go back to the failed policies of the Bush era.”

CPR Training Saves a Life

USW member Erv Meyer is grateful for the CPR instruction he received at a work-site training course negotiated by the USW with United States Steel Corp., his employer.

The Met Lab employee of U.S. Steel’s Fairless Works near Philadelphia saved the life of his 85-year-old father, also named Erv, on April 16 after he had slumped over while watching a

Philadelphia Phillies game on TV.Meyer quickly started chest compressions and mouth

to mouth breathing on his father, who had been unrespon-sive. “In less than two minutes, I’m breathing in his mouth and he woke up,’’ said Meyer, who took the training in January. “Within three minutes, the ambulance arrived and the police were here.”

Local 4889 President William Coe said the company had initially delayed implementing the CPR and AED training program, saying it was unnecessary.

“We negotiated it. It’s in the contract,” Coe said. “Erv Meyer took his training home and used it in a good way to save his father.”

USW, APRI Team Up for Green Jobs

The Pittsburgh chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute has teamed up with the Housing Au-thority of Pittsburgh and the USW to train workers for the new generation of green jobs.

The A. Philip Randolph Adult Learning Center, located in the housing authority’s Bedford Hope Center in Pittsburgh, opened last summer. There, USW trainers as well as leaders from APRI help residents and others learn the skills they need for employment.

The goal of the collaboration is to encourage self-sufficiency among housing authority residents, said Housing Authority Executive Director A. Fulton Meachem Jr.

“The support provided by the A. Philip Randolph Institute will help ensure that our residents have access to the education and skills necessary to compete in the 21st century work force,” he said.

Led by the USW’s DeWitt Walton, also the Pittsburgh APRI vice president, students learn computer and life skills and receive mentoring. They also learn about various union apprenticeship programs. The goal is to help residents take advantage of opportunities for family and community sus-taining employment in the building trades.

“The A. Phillip Randolph Adult Learning Center repre-sents everything APRI is about – educating, uplifting and empowering people so that they are not only stronger at work but stronger in their community,” said International Vice President for Human Affairs Fred Redmond.

Erv Meyer, left and William Coe

Student at computer lab


Retired Member Traces Local Union History

Retired rubber worker Jack Zais has written a book about the effort of his local union to organize the Uniroyal plant in Eau Clair, Wis., where he worked

for 25 years until its closing in 1992.The book, “Local 19: The Struggle to

Organize,” chronicles the efforts by work-ers to organize the plant from 1918 to 1938, when the first contract was signed with the Gillette Safety Tire Co.

Gillette was bought out by U.S. Rub-ber Co. in 1940. In 1961 the company changed its name to Uniroyal, which merged with B.F. Goodrich in 1986 to become Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Co. The plant was owned by Michelin when it closed.

For information on ordering the book, email Zais at [email protected]

Former Labor Secretary Willard Wirtz Dies

Former Secretary of Labor William Willard Wirtz, who helped the USW establish and enforce the rules that govern the union’s International Elec-tions, died on April 24 at the age of 98.

Wirtz, a lawyer and labor arbitrator was the first chair of the USW’s Cam-paign Conduct Administrative Committee and led the committee as it estab-lished and enforced the USW’s election rules.

During his tenure, the USW’s prohibition on the use of funds from non-members in International Elections was challenged in the courts and went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the union.

Wirtz left a Chicago law firm to join the Kennedy administration as under-secretary of labor in 1961. President John F. Kennedy promoted him to the top job in 1962 after naming Labor Secretary Arthur J. Goldberg to the Supreme Court. He stayed in the post after President Johnson succeeded Kennedy in 1963.

In step with the social and economic goals of Johnson’s Great Society initiatives, Wirtz directed numerous training and education programs aimed at furthering opportunities for workers. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 spurred the department to pursue an equal-opportunity agenda, including nondiscriminatory practices by contractors and equal pay for women.

ABG’s John J. Murphy, Sr. Dies

John J. Murphy Sr., a retired special assistant to the USW president and the first director of the union’s Aluminum Brick & Glass Division, died on March 18 at age 75.

Murphy was elected director of the division in 1996 after delegates voted to merge the Aluminum Brick and Glass Workers Union with the United Steelworkers of America. He also served on the executive council of the AFL-CIO Union Label Department.

Prior to the merger, Murphy had been executive adminis-trative assistant to the ABG president, administering affairs of the union and leading national negotiations in the aluminum, brick and glass industries.

A member of Local 440 at Reynolds Metals Co. in Rich-mond, Va., Murphy in 1974 joined the staff of the Aluminum Workers International Union, which later formed the ABG through mergers with the United Brick & Clay Workers and the United Glass and Ceramic Work-ers. He was a resident of St. Peters, Mo.

Alcoa Negotiations Start

The USW and Alcoa Inc. have opened negotiations in Cincinnati over a master contract that would cover about 5,400 employees at 10 plants in the United

States. The current labor contract expires on May 31. District 7 Director Jim Robinson is the lead negotiator for the union.

USW Applauds Airline Election Reforms

The USW applauded the National Mediation Board’s deci-sion to amend union election procedures in the airline and rail industry. The new rules replace procedures that required

a majority of workers to vote just to validate a union election. International President Leo W. Gerard said the amended proce-

dure will make elections “far fairer and much more democratic.” Under the old rules, when a worker didn’t participate in an

election, a “no” vote was recorded. This procedure often encour-aged voter suppression, because companies could prevent unions from forming by encouraging workers to not participate in the election. With the change, only workers who cast a vote will be counted.

Courthouse Monument Honors Local 665

Union memorials are a rare sight on courthouse lawns. But there is an impressive one that honors USW Local 665 in a place of honor outside of the Graves County courthouse in Mayfield, Ky.

Dubbed the “rock of labor,” the 3,000-pound, rough-hewn brown boulder commemorates Local 665, which represented hourly workers at the now de-funct Continental Tire factory in Mayfield. The factory closed in 2007.

Workers voted to join the union shortly after General Tire and Rubber opened the plant in 1960 to manufacture car and truck tires. Local 665 was part of the United Rubber Work-ers until it merged into the USW. General Tire sold the plant to Continental.

The boulder was donat-ed by the Western Kentucky AFL-CIO Area Council at the request of Wayne Chambers, Local 665’s last vice president and a council trustee. Chambers was the driving force behind the project.

Taxes at Truman Levels

Americans this year paid their lowest level in taxes since Harry Truman’s presidency in 1950 as a percentage of all personal income, according to analysis by the newspaper USA Today.

On average, taxes paid in 2009 – including state, local, federal, income, property, sales and other taxes – amounted to 9.2 percent of all personal income, the lowest rate since 1950, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

The average tax rate paid by all Americans regardless of their income level has fallen 26 percent since the recession began in 2007, the newspaper said, thanks in part to tax cuts included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Pa. AFL-CIO Leader Bill George Retires

After 20 years as the top union leader in Pennsylvania, steelworker William “Bill” George is retiring at the end of May as president of the Pennsylvania AFL-

CIO.A union member for 50 years, George started his career

with J&L Steel as a member of USW Local 1211 in Aliquip-pa, Pa. He became president of the state federation in 1990.

Rick Bloomingdale, the federation’s secretary-treasurer since 1994, was elected in April to suc-ceed George as president. Frank Snyder, a former USW organizer, succeeds Bloomingdale as secretary-treasurer.

Steelworkers Lobby for Clean Energy Jobs

The Blue Green Alliance marked the 40th anniversary of Earth Day by renewing its call for the U.S. Senate to pass comprehensive clean energy and climate change legislation

that includes strong policies to create manufacturing jobs.Seven USW members – each representing a segment of the

supply chain involved in producing clean energy technologies – visited with lawmakers April 22 on Capitol Hill to urge them to pass legislation with strong job-creating policies.

The USW joined with the Blue Green Alliance and the Alli-ance for American Manufacturing in highlighting the importance of policies to create good manufacturing jobs in clean energy. Those include Buy America domestic content requirements, expanding access to capital to make efficiency improvements to existing operations and build new plants to meet the demand for renewable energy projects, and the expansion by $5 billion of the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit.

USW Endorses Onorato for Pa. Governor

International President Leo W. Gerard and District 10 Director John DeFazio both

delivered endorsements to cur-rent Allegheny County Execu-tive Dan Onorato to be the next governor of Pennsylvania.

Onorato said he is proud of his labor support and will make job creation in Pennsylvania his highest priority if elected governor to succeed Democrat Ed Rendell, who is completing a second term in office.

Local 135 Applauded for PAC

Mark Kurkowski, acting president of Local 135 in Buffalo, N.Y., has been selected PAC Member of the

Quarter by District 4 Director Bill Pienta and USW PAC Coordinator Michael Scarver.

Members of the local, which represents some 900 employees of the Goodyear Dun-lop tire plant in Tonawanda, N.Y., are asked to contribute at least one dollar a week to the PAC. Check-off cards are presented to new members as part of new-hire orientation.

Federal Election Commission rules pro-hibit the use of union dues money for politi-

cal purposes, mak-ing it imperative that USW members voluntarily support local PAC efforts.

“Having a voice in the political sys-tem and in govern-ment is crucial,’’ Kurkowski said.

Geithner Visits USW in Pittsburgh

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner pledged to support domestic manufac-turing during a meeting with union and

industry officials at the USW headquarters in Pittsburgh on March 31. Geithner met with USW leaders, corporate executives and devel-opment officials after touring an Allegheny Technologies Inc. steel plant outside the city. He said the administration would use Recov-ery Act money for infrastructure projects that should help manufacturing. He also defended the administration’s record in handling the financial crisis that hit the banking sector and urged Congress to revamp rules govern-ing financial markets. Geithner also praised International President Leo W. Gerard as a “persuasive, firm, persistent” advocate for industry.

John Murphy, Sr.

Jack Zais

Bill George

Mark Kurkowski

Timothy Geithner

Leo W. Gerard, Dan Onorato and John DeFazio

The inscription reads: Rock of LaborIn Honor of the Members of United SteelworkersLocal 665SOLIDARITY FOREVER

Have You Moved?Notify your local union financial secretary, or clip out this form

with your old address label and send your new address to: USW@Work

USW Membership Department, 3340 Perimeter Hill Drive, Nashville, TN 37211

Name ______________________________________

New Address ________________________________

City ________________________________________

State _________________________ Zip _________

The USW is pressing for safer workplaces in the petroleum industry following a deadly series of accidents in April that killed or injured 40 people, including an oil rig explosion (above) in the Gulf of Mexico that swept 11 workers overboard and an explosion at a refinery in Anacortes, Wash., where seven workers perished. See pages 14 to 21.

leo w. gerard - united steelworkers · pdf filefive gateway center, ... i am a former ibm...

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