United Steelworkers officials are speaking out about an agreement between RG Steel LLC, the current owners of the former Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel and a New York based hedge fund company.
The agreement gives RG Steel more money to keep the company in business and a cash infusion from Cerberus Capital Management means RG Steel can restart its idled plant at Sparrows Point.
Mr Jerry Connors president of the USW Local 1223 in Yorkville said that "It will allow plants that were continuing to work Warren Mountain State Carbon Martins Ferry and Yorkville to be able to continue to acquire raw materials and materials they need to continue to operate. It should help RG be able to pay a lot of the vendors throughout the Ohio Valley right now."
Mr Connors said union members are concerned with what's not written in the press release from RG Steel and the company's letter to its employees, and he said there are still many unanswered questions. He added that "We need to find out what type of financing has been arranged, what it's going to mean for all the operating plants, what type of business plan they're going to have going forward in 2012 and beyond."
Mr Connors said that payments to the pension fund are overdue. He added that "January 2012 retirees, new retirees, that were due money in January 2012 have not yet received those monies because they have fallen behind on those payments. I would have thought that the first thing that would have been taken care of today would be those guys would have received their money."
He said the conditions of the market have changed somewhat: pricing is firming up a bit, raw material costs are going down some, but he said with the amount of money that was put into the company, it's going to have to move a great deal before we're going to be in a position where we can say we can bring other steel making facilities back online.
Mr Connors said the president of RG Steel is expected to schedule a meeting with union leaders and employees to talk about a game plan for 2012. In that meeting, Mr Connors said he hopes they will make a determination on what to do with the Steubenville Mingo complex.
(Sourced from www.wtov9.com)
