Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 17:46:37 -0400
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: Charlotte Kates <ckates-AT-mosquito.com>
Subject: LTV-war on the floor


LTV - War on the floor



by Rick Nagin



This article was reprinted from the April 20, 1996 issue of the People's

Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved -

may be used with PWW credits.





CLEVELAND - Some 2,000 steelworkers descended on the LTV shareholders

meeting here April 15 to protest company plans to build a nonunion minimill

in Alabama.



They cheered as top leaders of the United Steelworkers of America delivered

a strong warning that there will be an escalating "war on the floor" of

LTV's plants if the company does not resolve the dispute with the union

over the proposed new mill, a joint venture with the Japanese-owned

Sumimoto Metals and British Steel, known as TRICO.



Coming in busloads from Illinois, Indiana and Western Pennsylvania, the

workers joined fellow union members from Cleveland and surrounding areas.

While half demonstrated outside One Cleveland Center, the others, each

holding one share of LTV common stock, filled the building's auditorium and

an overflow room.



The din of the demonstrators pounding sticks on the pavement and chanting,

"Hoag must go!" could be heard in the meeting as LTV Chairman David Hoag

wound up his self-congratulatory message to the stockholders and turned the

floor over to company President J. Peter Kelly who was booed and heckled as

he attempted to defend TRICO.



"Sit down," the workers called, as Kelly finished up his speech. "Bring on

Leo," they cried, referring to Leo Gerard, the union's international

secretary-treasurer, who had been given permission to address the meeting.



Gerard, after getting a standing ovation, blasted the company's record of

breaking promises and violating the union's trust and for failing to

mention the sacrifices in wages, jobs and benefits the union had made in

the 1980s to get LTV out of bankruptcy.



"TRICO is being financed by profits that were generated by our union

members and is aimed at robbing them of their futures," he charged. The

plant, he said, would increase LTV's capacity 25 percent with no guarantee

of an expanding market or of the company's increased market share. Gerard

said 15,000 jobs have gone to build TRICO and thousands more are threatened

now. "Unless you reject this course of action I promise that we will be

your worst nightmare every day on the floor of these plants," he warned.



To loud cheers, Gerard introduced International Union President George

Becker, who said he had also come "to let the stockholders and investors

know about the betrayal and treachery of LTV's management."



Becker said he had negotiated hundreds of contracts over the past 30 years

but only rarely had to deal with "such untrustworthy people. We call them

renegade companies and sometimes we call them much worse. They have no

loyalty to their workers, no loyalty to their investors, no loyalty to the

communities where they are located."



Surrounded by boisterous demonstrators carrying black flags with red

letters reading "War on the floor -- Stop TRICO," Becker told the press

outside the building that if LTV does not settle, "the consequences will

not be something" the stockholders will be able to live with.



Negotiations between the union and LTV over wages and other economic issues

which began April 1 are stalled. Unresolved issues must go to binding

arbitration under the current contract which expires in 1999.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------



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    Charlotte L. Kates     ckates-AT-mosquito.com        Collingswood, NJ

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