Alcoa, Steelworkers Union Work on Labor Pact as Deadline Nears

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Bloomberg

By Edmond Lococo - Alcoa Inc., the largest U.S. aluminum maker, and the United Steelworkers union said they are working to reach a labor agreement before expiration of the current contract tomorrow night.

“Still hard at it,” Jim Robinson, the union’s lead negotiator, said in an e-mail from the talks in Cincinnati today. He declined to offer more details.

Kevin Lowery, a spokesman for Alcoa, offered no details on the talks in an e-mail today. Gerald Dickey, a spokesman for the union that represents almost 6,000 workers at 11 plants, said he didn’t have any information on the status of the negotiations.

Alcoa and the union are working to avoid the first strike at plants covered by the contract since 1986. The union has said that it would resist New York-based Alcoa’s initial contract proposal that would have more than tripled health-care costs for some families.

Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-30/alcoa-steelworkers-union-work-on-labor-pact-as-deadline-nears.html

[Oceansaway]

1. K&R...n/t

[Kingofalldems]

2. K and R for the union--here's hoping for a fair contract

[penndragon69]

3. As an employee of Alcoa..

I am appalled by the company's ideas about a fair contract.
So what is fair about THEIR ideas?

Ignore seniority at company discretion.
Lay Anybody off at any time at the company's discretion.
Adjust work hours anytime at the company's discretion.
Hire new people for the jobs while people are still layed off at the company's discretion.
Put employees on 30 hour weeks or layed off on an "on call" status, at the company's discretion.
Shift the cost of health insurance onto the workers at the company's discretion.
Change the rules of your health care plan at the company's discretion.

Save millions of dollars in workers pay and benefits
and use them to pay their own bonuses and bloated executive salaries.

Alcoa wants to create a slave labor work force that lives by the phone, waiting for
a call to report for work that may never come...
( especially if you are a union member).

I and my fellow Alcoans are ready to go on strike to stop the company from
destroying what we have built over the last 100 years of the labor fight.

Reaganomics can kiss my UNION ASS !

[Omaha Steve]

5. Thank you for a look inside

I bought some Alcoa stock in 98. Made money on it even though it is a cyclical. After reading your comments, I'm glad I sold it a few years ago.

[nvme]

4. just another

The rotting corpse of the gipper chipping away at the foundation built by labor