The U.S. steelworkers union on Monday announced a strike at nine Allegheny Technology (ATI) plants, citing what it called “unfair labor practices.”
According to media reports, the ATI strike, which began at 7 a.m. ET on Monday, was the first strike at ATI since 1994.
“We would like to meet with management on a daily basis, but ATI needs to work with us to resolve outstanding issues,” USW International Vice President David McCall said in a prepared statement.”We will continue to bargain in good faith, and we strongly urge ATI to start doing the same.
“Through generations of hard work and dedication, ATI’s steelworkers have earned and deserved the protection of their union contracts. We cannot allow companies to use the global pandemic as an excuse to reverse decades of collective bargaining progress.”
Negotiations with ATI begin in January 2021, USW said.The union claimed that the company “seeked significant economic and contractual language concessions from its approximately 1,300 union members”.In addition, the union said members’ wages had not increased since 2014.
“Aside from protesting the company’s grossly unfair labor practices, a fair and equitable contract is the union’s greatest desire, and we are prepared to meet with management daily if that helps us reach a fair agreement,” McCall said in a statement Friday. said in the statement.”We will continue to bargain in good faith, and we strongly urge ATI to start doing the same.”
“Last night, ATI further refined our proposal in hopes of avoiding a shutdown,” ATI spokeswoman Natalie Gillespie wrote in an emailed statement.”Faced with such a generous offer – including a 9% wage increase and free health care – we are disappointed by this action, especially at a time of such economic challenges for ATI.
“We remain committed to serving our customers and continue to operate safely in the manner necessary to deliver on our commitments through the use of our non-represented employees and temporary replacement workers.
“We will continue to negotiate to reach a competitive agreement that will reward our hardworking employees and help ATI succeed in the future.”
As we pointed out in our previous reports, including the Monthly Metals Outlook, industrial metals buying organizations face serious challenges when it comes to sourcing metals.On top of that, steel prices continue to soar.Buyers continue to hope that steelmakers will bring in fresh supplies.
In addition, skyrocketing shipping costs have made imported goods expensive, putting buyers in a tough spot.The ATI strike will only exacerbate an already difficult situation.
Meanwhile, MetalMiner senior stainless analyst Katie Benchina Olsen said production losses from the strike would be difficult to make up for.
“Neither NAS nor Outokumpu have the capacity to fill the ATI strike,” she said.”My view is that we may see some manufacturers run out of metal or have to replace it with another stainless steel alloy or even another metal.”
Additionally, in December, ATI had announced plans to exit the standard stainless sheet market.
“The announcement is part of the company’s new business strategy,” wrote MetalMiner senior research analyst Maria Rosa Gobitz.”ATI will focus on investing in the ability to invest in margin-enhancing products, primarily in the aerospace and defense industry.”
In a December announcement, ATI said it would exit the aforementioned markets in mid-2021.In addition, ATI said the product line brought in $445 million in revenue in 2019 with a profit margin of less than 1%.
ATI President and CEO Robert S. Wetherbee said in the company’s fourth-quarter 2020 earnings release: “In the fourth quarter, we took decisive action by exiting our low-margin standard stainless sheet product line and redeploying capital to high-end stainless steel products. A rewarding opportunity to accelerate our future.” Post.”We’ve made significant progress toward this goal. This transformation represents an important step in ATI’s journey to a more sustainable and profitable aerospace and defense company.”
Additionally, in fiscal 2020, ATI reported a net loss of $1.57 billion, compared to net income of $270.1 million in 2019.
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