United Steelworkers Press Releases Feed

  • AEWC Members Flag Recruitment and Training Challenges at Spring Meeting
    The Atomic Energy Workers Council (AEWC) held its biannual meeting March 5-6 in Arlington, Va., broaching the topics of recruitment and training at atomic worksites across the country, as well as federal funding opportunities that may help address these concerns. AEWC members from nearly every site agreed that attracting and training new workers has become increasingly difficult. Council representatives from Portsmouth, Paducah, Hanford and the Idaho National Laboratory said that training programs have become less rigorous in order to attract new workers, and expressed the potential for safety issues down the road. Bill Collins, Local 12-369 President at the Hanford site in Richland, Wash., said his site hasn’t hired an apprentice in 25 years. They instead use a journeyman training model, which he says cuts costs but does not prepare workers as well as apprenticeships. USW International Vice President Roxanne Brown, AEWC President Jim Key and AEWC members brought the issue to William “Ike” White, Senior Advisor for Environmental Management at the DOE, who spent an hour at the meeting on day two. “Rigor in training and planning has deteriorated over the years, and with chip plants and other manufacturing, there will be competing personnel for the workforce on these sites,” said Herman Potter, Local 689 President at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio. White said attracting the talent needed for the nuclear workforce is a challenge not only in the U.S., but around the globe. “When I think about the cleanup program going into the future, I think that one of our more significant risks is ensuring we get the right workforce we need, not just today and tomorrow, but for the foreseeable future,” said White. “This is about increasing the pipeline for folks who can do the jobs in 15 years, and how we can talk to companies about being more long-term and strategic in their planning.” White credited the USW’s Tony Mazzochi Center for its successful training programs of junior radiological technicians in Portsmouth and Paducah, and thanked the council for its continued collaboration. Leveraging funding opportunities Brown serves as the only labor representative on the Secretary of Energy’s advisory board, and reminded the council she can use her position strategically to make asks. “This is the first time in history we’ve had this position on the advisory board, a direct line of communication to the Secretary of Energy,” said Brown. “We need to prioritize our issues and think about how we can use this platform to the council’s advantage.” Recruiting new workers and training them to the highest degree of safety standards is near the top of that priority list. “The DOE is flush with cash for these kinds of projects, and we need to use every lever we have to connect these projects to USW jobs and what that means for our future,” said Brown. USW Director of Regulatory and State Policy Anna Fendley updated the council about the influx of DOE funding allocated for clean energy manufacturing technologies. Part of the funding, Fendley said, is for building and retrofitting manufacturing facilities, particularly in areas where coal-fired power plants have closed like Portsmouth and Paducah. “As we’re talking about reindustrialization within the coming year and potential growth at our sites, it’s important to think about using our leverage to get organizing wins and bring people into your units,” said Fendley. The council set a working group meeting for early April to further the funding conversation, and an additional working group will meet to discuss harmonizing health care benefits in mid-April. The AEWC will meet again in the Washington, D.C., area in September 2023. AEWC members from USW Local 550 visit Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) during a lobby day on the Hill after the atomic council meeting. — Mar 24
  • Election Outcome Creates Opportunity for Restoring Workers' Rights in Michigan
    In Part 1 of our 2021 series, Gubernatorial Elections: 36 in ’22, we recounted the story of how, from 2010 to 2012, anti-worker governors in several states, including Michigan, forced through so-called “Right to Work” legislation to undercut union power in favor of their corporate backers. Steelworkers were among the thousands who descended upon the Michigan capitol in 2012 to protest the legislation before it was signed by former Governor Rick Snyder, and we’ve fought on every front for its repeal ever since. This month – after more than a decade of worker organizing in worksites, our communities, and the ballot box – we have some incredible news to share. In early March, the new pro-worker majority in Michigan’s state legislature -- the state’s first in nearly 40 years -- acted swiftly on their promise to restore workers’ collective bargaining rights by passing legislation to repeal the state’s so-called “Right to Work” law. Leading up to the Michigan State House’s initial March 8 vote, more than 60 Steelworkers were in Lansing to spend time meeting with their legislators to educate them on the real worker impacts of Right to Work and urging them to support its repeal. As the legislation has moved through the chambers, Steelworkers have been there every step of the way. Pictured: USW members with Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks A final vote in the legislature is expected as early as today. Governor Gretchen Whitmer has long promised to sign the repeal into law if the state legislature sends it to her desk. “The pending repeal of Michigan’s so-called “Right to Work” law, along with Governor Whitmer’s action to put an end to the unfair pension tax in early March, speaks volumes about the impact workers can have in local, state and federal elections,” said Donnie Blatt, USW District 1 Director. “I’m so incredibly proud of everything our union has done to make this possible.” — Mar 24
  • Conway urges Congress to back "Commitment to Veteran Support and Outreach Act"
    The fight for our Veterans of Steel continues in our union. Last summer. we passed a resolution at our Constititional Convention mandating USW locals have a Veterans of Steel committee. At the start of this year, we announced a new initative with our Rapid Response, Veterans of Steel and other activist groups to push for legislation at all levels of government that helps our military veterans, especially at the workplace. This was inspired by our union family in New York, which led the way for passage of a first-of-its-kind law in the nation that requires employers to display a poster containing information on veterans’ benefits and services, which shall be created and distributed by the Department of Labor. This week, our International President Tom Conway, penned a letter to leaders in Congress urging them to support H.R. 984, the “Commitment to Veteran Support and Outreach (CVSO) Act.” This bipartisan legislation authorizes additional resources to expand the work of county veterans service officers (CVSOs), who are often the best resource on the ground to assist veterans in securing the benefits they have earned. "Right now, many veterans do not access all of their earned benefits because they do not have the proper information or knowledge on how to navigate the benefits process. Out of 19 million veterans in the United States, only about 9.6 million are enrolled in Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care, 5.3 million receive disability compensation, and 3.6 million are active VA home loan participants — with other VA programs showing similar rates of underutilization," Conway wrote. "To reduce benefit underutilization and increase awareness of services, the CVSO Act will strengthen county veterans service officers’ efforts to conduct outreach and provide support to underserved veterans, which can improve overall health and wellness." Click here to read the entire letter.  — Mar 21
  • Workers’ Newest Allies in State and Federal Government (Part three of series)
    With only two months under his belt as a freshman member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chris Deluzio has quickly established himself as an unwavering voice for workers.  Before he earned our union’s endorsement and went on to win a closely-contested election for Congress in November 2022, Deluzio was working at the University of Pittsburgh where he was an outspoken advocate for faculty who sought representation with the United Steelworkers (USW) union.  Deluzio was an active member of the Pitt Faculty Organizing Committee, and he has said frequently that organizing fellow university workers inspired him to run for Congress. When dozens of Pitt faculty gathered at the USW Headquarters to celebrate their landslide unionization vote in October 2021, Deluzio was there. “It’s a huge win, not just for us as faculty, but for the University [and] our students,” Deluzio said. “It sends a huge message to workers in Western Pennsylvania that labor is not on defense anymore.” Deluzio continues to stand in solidarity with the faculty. Last month, he joined a rally outside the University’s Board of Trustees meeting to protest a lack of progress with negotiations. “I’m with you, I’m thinking about you,” Deluzio told the crowd. “You deserve a contract and the decent, basic benefits and pay that every worker in this country deserves.”  As a lawmaker, the belief that workers and our allies need to be playing offense has been Deluzio’s guiding principle.  When he attended his first State of the Union Address, Deluzio invited a member of the Newspaper Guild-CWA of Pittsburgh, James “Hutchie” VanLandingham, who has been on strike from his job as a mailer with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since October 2022. This strike is the first of its kind in Pittsburgh in more than 30 years. In recognition of this struggle and others, Deluzio recently joined Representative Susan Wild (PA-7) and Senators Bob Casey (PA) and Sherrod Brown (OH) in introducing bicameral legislation to protect striking workers’ health care. The legislation, called the Striking and Locked Out Workers Healthcare Protection Act, would create a new unfair labor practice category for employers who cut or alter striking or locked out workers’ health insurance. In a press release announcing the legislation, Deluzio said, “No company should be able to hold a worker’s health – or the well-being of their family – hostage during a labor dispute.” When a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, just 10 miles outside of his Pennsylvania congressional district, Deluzio quickly huddled with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to demand the company be held accountable for cleanup and making whole anyone whose health and community has been impacted.  Additionally, Deluzio has already cosponsored several pro-worker reforms, including:
    • No Tax Breaks for Outsourcing Act (H.R. 884);
    • Save Medicare Act (H.R. 732);
    • Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R. 17); and,
    • H.J. Res. 13, which seeks to limit the outsized impact of corporate spending in elections. 
    Click HERE to receive our monthly Election Connection newsletter, and each month you’ll have stories like this delivered right to your inbox.      — Mar 21
  • Part of the Family: Member-Driven Organizing Effort Already Delivering Wins
    Teiya Hangsleben got involved in the labor movement before she was even old enough to sign a union card. At the age of 12, she started helping her father, a local union officer, write grievances. So when the USW offered rank-and-file members like Hangsleben the opportunity to be trained as organizers and put those skills to use in workplaces across North America to grow the union, she “jumped at it,” she said. Hangsleben attended training sessions alongside her USW siblings last spring in Ohio, then hit the ground running over the summer, helping the USW achieve its largest industrial organizing victory in 19 years, bringing 700 members at the Bobcat plant in Bismarck, N.D., into the union. Rank-and-File That vote by Bobcat workers last fall was a huge success largely because of the effort, launched a year ago by International President Tom Conway, to bring rank-and-file members onto the union’s organizing staff and ask them to talk to people in shops just like their own, where they can relate directly to their fellow workers about their struggles. Hangsleben and several other organizers on the campaign came from another Bobcat plant in Gwinner, N.D., just 200 miles southeast of Bismarck, where more than 1,000 USW members work. The workers were able to speak with authority about the union difference because their experiences at work were so similar. “It was definitely a benefit being from a Bobcat shop,” said Hangsleben, whose father still serves as president of Local 560 in Gwinner. “We were able to relate to them all the more.” That ability for rank-and-file members to grow the USW ranks through direct conversations with their fellow workers is the key to the USW’s organizing push. “It’s a genius idea,” Hangsleben said. “You’re going to relate to people better who are just like you. It puts people more at ease and makes them more open to conversations.” Those conversations came easily for Hangsleben and her co-worker and fellow USW organizer Derrick Anderson. “We speak the same language. We have the same concerns,” said Anderson, who spent 14 years working in a non-union factory before coming to work at Bobcat. “We know how a union can benefit them, because we live it.” The grassroots nature of the USW’s organizing plan was a major key to success, members said. “Some conversations start out cold,” Anderson said. “But then when we say where we are from, they start talking more openly.” The Bobcat facility in Gwinner has been part of the USW family for nearly 55 years and is well known in the area for being a good place to work thanks in large part to the union. “We have a long history, so it’s not just a new fad,” Anderson said. “We’re here to stay, and we can say we make your home life, your work life, your whole life better with the union.” National Trend The USW victory in Bismarck was part of a national trend that began even before the COVID-19 pandemic. A Gallup poll taken in August showed that 71 percent of Americans hold a positive view of labor unions – the highest level in 57 years. In addition to the 700 workers in Bismarck, the USW has achieved several other high-profile organizing victories in recent years. In October 2021, 3,400 faculty members at the University of Pittsburgh voted by a nearly 3-to-1 margin to join the Steelworkers, overcoming a relentless anti-union campaign by the administration that lasted years and cost the school millions of dollars. Elsewhere, interest in unions remains high. More than 6,800 workers at 263 Starbucks locations in the United States have joined unions, and workers at an Amazon warehouse that employs 6,000 people in Staten Island voted last spring to unionize their shop. Union History The facility that the USW team was successful in organizing in Bismarck had been unionized in the past before shutting down and reopening without union representation. “That was pretty personal to us,” Hangsleben said. “That kind of got the fire going in my opinion.” That fire spread quickly through the Bismarck factory. District 11 Director Emil Ramirez said the employees at the factory recognized that a strong union would provide them with a collective voice on the job and also would empower individual employees, who became closer as a group during the organizing effort. “As employers continue to urge more and faster production, it is absolutely essential for workers to have a say on issues that could impact their occupational health and safety,” Ramirez said. “Fair pay and benefits will help retain loyal, experienced workers, and ensuring adequate staffing numbers will keep the plant running as safely and efficiently as possible.” Contract Talks Now that the work of organizing the facility is behind them, the workers in Bismarck are in the process of bargaining a contract. “Bobcat workers deserve a fair union contract that provides fair pay and promotes a healthy work-life balance with limits on mandatory overtime and provisions for paid time off,” said new member Jacob Klein. “We are proud to join the United Steelworkers and look forward to the next step of the process — working together to negotiate a fair first collective bargaining agreement.” Hangsleben said she hopes that the big victory in Bismarck spreads to other non-union facilities in the area so that everyone can reap the benefits of a strong union contract. “I had a lot of satisfaction when the election results came in,” she said. “You’re not just helping those 700 people. You’re helping those 700, plus their families, as well as future generations.” This story was originally published in the Winter 2023 issue of [email protected] Click here to read that issue as a PDF. — Mar 1