The United Steelworkers of America said that they have reached a contract agreement with the new owners of Crucible Specialty Metals in Geddes, who hope to reopen the steel plant next month.

Mr Richard Knowles the Steelworkers sub district director said that there are no details available about the new contract and it will be explained to members of three local unions at informational meetings that will be scheduled for next week.

He would not discuss the details of the agreement until workers have seen the contract.

He added that the agreement wrapped up with the steel mill’s new owner, Crucible Industries LLC, is an improvement over an earlier agreement reached with BlackEagle Partners.

BlackEagle had negotiated a new contract with the Steelworkers with an eye toward buying the Geddes plant at a bankruptcy court auction. Workers voted in September to accept the agreement prior to the auction. However, creditors opted to take JP Industries Inc bid to buy the plant for USD 8 million. It created Crucible Industries to run the plant.

The agreement reached with the new owners restored some of the wage concessions the workers made to BlackEagle, and improves fringe benefits.

The USWA Local 1277 represents production and maintenance workers, Local 14532-18 represents office and technical workers, Local 2924 represent security workers at the plant. At one time the plant employed 693 workers, of which 550 were union members. A maintenance crew currently works at the plant, which has been shut down since September.

(Sourced from www.syracuse.com)