New contract means wins for Stelco workers, but pain for retirees: Steelworkers
'I just want to work and retire, and I'll lose more if I'm not working'
Some of them were annoyed, wondering why Hamilton's Stelco pensioners won't get their health benefits fully reinstated like the pensioners in Nanticoke.
I just want to work and retire, and I'll lose more if I'm not working.- Herb Maerz, steelworker
Other Stelco workers — mostly younger ones among the 450 who met yesterday to hear the details of a contract offer from the company that is poised to become their new boss — were hopeful.
Bedrock Industries wants to buy the Stelco steel plant, they said. No one else seems to be waiting in the wings, and with the agreement, they're not losing pay or benefits.
Overall, though, one word summed up the mood of the steelworkers who met Wednesday: wary.
"There's a lot of apprehension," said Gary Howe, president of United Steelworkers Local 1005.
Bedrock Industries plans to buy the Hamilton and Nanticoke operations, both newly converted to its old Stelco brand name after U.S. Steel Canada entered into Companies Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) protection.
The union membership's opinion matters. The judge in the court-supervised sale says he won't sign off on the plan to sell Hamilton and Nanticoke until collective bargaining agreements are in place.
Local 1005 presented the agreements to current steelworkers Wednesday, and will present to retirees Thursday. Retirees don't get a vote, but current steelworkers will vote June 6. Votes for the members of Local 8782, representing Nanticoke wokers, are being held this week.
I'm disappointed by that.- Gary Howe, USW Local 1005
The 1005 agreement isn't perfect, said Tony DePaulo, assistant to the USW Ontario director. But for current members, there were no concessions. "In fact, I think there were a few gains."
Short-term disability payments, for example, will increase by $100 a week, and there'll be a shorter waiting period.
Even better, workers said, the company has to give 18 months notice if it wants to close a coke oven, and wages have increased slightly.
Other parts hurt, particularly for pensioners. When U.S. Steel Canada entered CCAA protection, for example, it cut off health and drug benefits to pensioners — commonly known as other pension employment benefits (OPEBs). That left retirees who'd paid into the OPEBs, and retired thinking they'd be there, without coverage.
The Nanticoke agreement with Local 8782 fully restores the OPEBs. For Hamilton, they'll only be about 70 per cent restored.
Howe said it's a matter of simple numbers. Nanticoke has 800 active members and about 1,000 retirees. Hamilton has 540 active members and 9,000 retirees.
The union will look at providers and other ways to increase coverage, he said.
"That's the biggest thing by far," he said. "I'm disappointed by that."
Outside the Royal Canadian Legion on Limeridge Road East, Herb Maerz and Peter Oettgen summed up the two views.
Maerz, a Mountain resident, has been a steelworker for 38 years and has no plans to retire. He's voting in favour of the contract.
Oettgen, a 40-year steelworker and Stoney Creek resident, plans to retire in July. He's voting no.
Oettgen doesn't like the disparity with the OPEBs. "(Nanticoke has) parity and we don't," he said.
As for Maerz, "we're not losing anything," he said. He predicts the vote will pass, although "everybody has mixed emotions."
"I just want to work and retire, and I'll lose more if I'm not working," he said. "I'd rather work."