LA Times: This steel industry battle shows why unions are necessary!!!

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-why-unions-are-necessary-20150831-column.html

Michael Hiltzik 8-31-15

As we approach Labor Day, the old question about what unions are good for is being played out in the steel industry, where Allegheny Technologies has locked out more than 2,000 workers in an effort to extract sizable concessions on health and retirement benefits from the United Steelworkers union.

Allegheny intends to replace those workers with non-union workers -- in common parlance, scabs -- who will be offered jobs for temporarily premium wages, no benefits, and a guarantee that they will be out of a job as soon as a new contract is signed. (H/T to labor historian Erik Loomis, who stumbled across this unfolding story by chance.)

According to an ad purportedly for Allegheny facilities placed by labor contractor Strom Engineering on the Pittsburgh-area Craigslist, the nonunion workers would get up to $3,000 a week based on "position, skills and experience." That sounds pretty good, as it adds up to more than $150,000 a year. But the pay scale actually starts at $1,700 a week, and it's for a workweek of up to 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Applicants "must be able to lift up to 50 lbs. and work in a standing position for entire shift ... in a high heat/temperature manufacturing environment." The ad specifies that the workers will be transported across a picket line.

The conditions and pay offered non-union workers gives a glimpse of what conditions would be like in a non-unionized steel industry. It's become fashionable among conservative politicians and ivory-tower pundits to say that real-world working conditions have made unions unnecessary or even obsolete.

FULL story at link.

[Travis_0004]

1. Its kind of a bad comparison

They want temp workers to work 7 days a week, because they don't have enough, and its short notice.

If they went non union, it would be a mostly 40 hour a week job, with a bit of overtime.