Workers up the ante in Wheeling-Pitt strike: "Flying squads" put squeeze on stonewalling steel boss

by Denise Winebrenner

This article was reprinted from the April 26, 1997 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

FOLLANSBEE, W. Va. - Members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA), who have been on strike against Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. for nearly seven months, upped the ante on April 22 when they set up the first informational picket line at the Wheeling-Nisshin rolling mill here.

Similar actions are planned for other Wheeling-Pitt facilities as rank-and-file steelworkers seek to force company officials to enter into meaningful bargaining with the USWA.

The decision to expand the field of struggle came in response to the walkout of Wheeling-Pitt negotiators from a second meeting arranged by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) in an effort to resolve the strike.

Many pickets came in rented buses and vans in order to prevent tracing individual car licenses by police, leaving local cops with little to do except direct traffic on West Virginia State Highway 2. By the time Wheeling-Nisshan management arrived they were greeted by a sea of striking steelworkers, self-made picket signs in hand, at every gate.

Scores of trucks were stopped as drivers of 18-wheelers turned their big steel-hauling rigs around right under the nose of company big wigs. While management bullied their way into their offices, a handful of workers honored the USWA informational picketline.

"It was all very, very cool," one young steelworker told this reporter. "We've outsmarted them again."

In their decision to expand their range of operations, Wheeling-Pitt strikers borrowed a page from tactics of the "roving picket" movement developed by members of the United Mine Workers. There, rank-and-file miners added the element of surprise as another ingredient in their successful battle to defeat the coal operators.

"You just never know when or where we'll be," coal miners said then. Today Wheeling-Pitt strikers say, "We'll know when and where we are going when we get there."

Wheeling-Pitt forced 4,500 steelworkers in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania on strike Oct. 1, 1996 when the company refused to meet the union's demand for a pension plan on a par with the rest of the industry.

Despite sitting on $406 million in cash and reaping a per/ton profit double the industry standard, Wheeling-Pitt reneged on an earlier promise to restore a defined benefit pension. Union sources say that the interest on that money is enough to finance its pension demand.

Instead of bargaining with the union, the USWA estimates that Wheeling-Pitt has spent $70 million since the strike began in a media campaign meant to sow division in the ranks of the union and to isolate the strikers from the community.

In 1985, Wheeling-Pitt took advantage of bankruptcy to drive down steelworker pensions, wages and eliminate jobs in the Ohio and Monongahela valleys.

Steelworkers are convinced that they are responsible for bringing Wheeling-Pitt back from bankruptcy. "Now it's our turn," they say.

According to USWA research , Ron LaBow, CEO of Wheeling-Pitt's holding company, has stashed $28 million into his personal checking account over the last four years, a fact not lost on strikers who carry signs reading, "Cheap pensions make LaBow millions."

The Wheeling-Nisshin rolling mill is a state-of-the-art electro-galvanzing mill feeding the construction, heating, ventilation and air conditioning industry.

Because it is a joint venture between Wheeling Pitt and Japan-based Nisshin Steel, the mill is not covered by the Wheeling-Pitt contract. It opened in the late 80s with massive tax abatements from West Virginia and has operated throughout the strike.

When the strike stopped production of raw steel at the Wheeling-Pitt mill in Mingo Junction, USX and other steel companies stepped in to keep unfinished steel rolling into the Wheeling-Nisshin plan.

Facilities Wheeling-Pitt owns outright or partially include Consumers Mining Company, Pittsburgh-Canfield Corporation, Ohio Coatings, WPC Land Company, Wheeling Construction Products, W-P Coal Company and Wheeling Corrugating.

Look for the USWA mobile, informational picket line - coming soon to a Wheeling-Pitt facility near you. Support for the USWA can be sent to: USWA-WP LU Special Assistance Fund, 2084 National Road, 1st floor, Wheeling, WV 26003.