Explosion strikes AK Steel (Ohio) injuries reported; blast heard for miles

[theHandpuppet]

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060410/NEWS01/604100402

Explosion strikes AK Steel
Injuries reported; blast heard for miles

BY JANICE MORSE AND DENISE SMITH AMOS | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

MIDDLETOWN --Three explosions late Sunday night at AK Steel shook homes and buildings for miles, sent a mushroom cloud 150 feet into the air and injured three employees.

Pieces of red-hot slag ignited 15 to 20 small fires, damaging the roof of a building, two trailers, a dumpster and a pickup truck, the fire chief said.

“All I saw was this huge ball at first,” said union employee Glenn Reliford. “I’ve worked here 16 years and this was 10 times louder than anything I’ve heard here. It was deafening.”

Reliford was picketing outside the Butler County plant when the explosions occurred. On Feb. 28, the company locked out 2,700 hourly union workers during a contract dispute, replacing them with salaried employees and replacement workers....

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Maybe this is what happens when you replace Union workers with SCABS!

[saigon68]

1. Yikes

Sounds like some of the scabs screwed up.

Because they didn't know what they were doing.

[skooooo]

4. whoah!

I hope the unions rise again.

[mom cat]

5. That is my take on it too.

[Kutjara]

2. Whoda thunk it?

Chuck out skilled steel workers and replace them with people whose last job was flipping burgers at the local Gorge 'n Puke and your steel plant goes boom.

Go figure.

[shenmue]

3. There's good business practices for you...

:sarcasm:

:grr:

[DS1]

6. salaried employees, eh?

sounds like middle-management got involved and blew the place up

[theHandpuppet]

8. Yeah, remember what happened to Firestone?

When the managers and scabs were rolling tires off the line rather than their union workers?

We never learn, do we. Reagan fired some 14,000 air traffic controllers and now those replacements want to go on strike? Well, duh. There are UNIONS for a reason, and any union-busting scab or company make their own trouble. Now coal companies in Kentucky want to replace union miners with cheaper immigrant labor. The corporate "govt" of the U.S. never ceases in its efforts to destroy unions in this country.

[hedgehog]

7. Sounds about right too me.

I was an engineer assigned to work through my company's last three strikes and I was amazed that no one was killed. The last strike I was the only engineer doing a production job. (Funny how that worked out, huh?) Oddly enough, I was laid off a year later. DO you think they guessed I didn't have the right attitude?

[Marie26]

9. All of these accidents

are occuring at non-unionized plants. The Bush Administration has completely destroyed the safety regulations that used to protect workers. If they don't have unions to protect them, workers don't have any voice or any power to require safe conditions. This accident happened after the unions were locked out. And the companies should want experienced union workers who know how to do the job correctly & are able to notice & criticize safety violations. Experienced, unionized workers can prevent accidents like this one or the Sago mine disaster.

[theHandpuppet]

10. Totally agree with you

When the coal operators manage to shove out union miners as they are trying to do right now, you'll see even more tragic accidents in the mines. But to greed-motivated corporatists, human life is cheap. All they care about are profits. Unions are sometimes the only thing standing between workers and disaster.

[icymist]

11. Ohio Steel Mill Explosions Leave 3 Hurt ('Replacement workers')

By Associated Press

April 10, 2006, 1:05 PM EDT


MIDDLETOWN, Ohio -- A series of steam explosions ignited several fires and injured three workers at a steel mill where union employees have been locked out for six weeks, officials said.

One worker suffered burns, another was treated for smoke inhalation and a third sprained an ankle while helping extinguish one of the fires late Sunday, AK Steel spokesman Alan McCoy said.
snip
AK Steel locked out nearly 2,700 hourly employees when their contract expired Feb. 28. The company has used salaried personnel and replacement workers since then. McCoy declined to say whether the injured workers were replacement workers, or whether the explosions resulted from worker error.
More

[sasquatch]

12. I live near there and I'm about to become a Eagles member in that town

I hope they get that contract negotiated right away.

[cantstandbush]

13. They will pay some of that money being kept from union workers to those

injured in the explosion. the American union worker is a thing of the past. Maybe some foreign country will take up their cause like Reagan did for Poland (while tanking the Air Traffic Controllers Union at home) in the 80's?

[Canuckistanian]

14. Just like the plane that got damaged....

Because the baggage handlers were unexperienced contract workers.

Professionalism and competence cannot be hired on a minimum wage!

[doc03]

15. This may sound a little harsh but any person

that would scab on another working person gets no sympathy from me. I've worked in a steel mill for 36 years and it is no place for temporary unskilled workers. I work in a Union steel mill and people get killed and injured badly that have years and years of experience. A spill of a small amount of molten steel in a puddle of water can make an explosion such as that and they a common.

[struggle4progress]

16. Investors hope AK Steel can lower costs

Lock out at local plant enters second month

... Shareholders are more encouraged by the possibility of cost-shedding through a new labor agreement than they are concerned about short-term financial consequences from a lock-out, said David Martin, mining and materials analyst for Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. Cost-cutting contract measures are necessary to put AK Steel in line with the rest of the industry, which has dumped labor and legacy costs through bankruptcies and mergers, he said ... http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12248821/

And for

[saigon68]

17. kick