Steelworkers Continue To Picket Without Pay During Holidays
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Hundreds of steelworkers are going through the holiday season without a paycheck.
A honk of support for the idled steelworkers outside of ATI's Brackenridge plant -- where they've been locked out since August -- and now heading into winter.
Mechanical maintenance technician Bradley Jacob and the others face an uncertain future.
"We recently bought a house, me and my wife, and surprise, a few months later this happens, and you just never know what life's going to hand you," Jacob said.
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Over in Cheswick, locked-out worker Aimee Bennett plays Uno with son Levi and her two stepdaughters and tries to get into the Christmas spirit -- despite living on unemployment insurance.
"Definitely on a tighter budget," she said. "I'm trying to do the best that I can to make sure those two girls and little boy have the things that they need. Not so much what they want, but need."
And over at the Union Hall, workers try to hold firm -- despite an equally rocky future for the American Steel Industry itself.
Companies like ATI and U.S. Steel have asked for major labor concessions in the face of a worldwide slowdown in demand and competition from the dumping of cheap imported steel on the American market.
The union argues that that is all the more reason for a reasonable contract settlement to keep the domestic steel industry alive.
"Not only are we fighting for our jobs, but we are fighting for American jobs, good-paying American jobs," USW local president Fran Arabia said. "The more we let go overseas, we're not going to have these jobs that are gonna be family-sustaining , life-sustaining jobs."
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But negotiations have gone nowhere over the last four and a half months. Just last week, the National Labor Relations board declared the lockout illegal, but ATI indicated it would fight the federal complaint.
In a statement the company said, "We have acted properly throughout these negotiations. We look forward to presenting our evidence in the proper venues."
All of that means that means that Aimee Bennett and family will be hunkering down this christmas watching their pennies and counting the blessings they have -- including the unseasonably warm weather.
"Sometimes, I think maybe that's, in a mysterious way, God's way of making it a little bit easier on us, not being out there in the cold, not picketing in the snow, in 2 feet of snow, so," Bennett said. "I'm just going day-by-day and doing what I can."
