Read this article in:
6 November, 2002The United Steelworkers of America (USWA) has launched InsideAK.org, a website dedicated to providing investors and other stakeholders with reliable, independent and up-to-date information about AK Steel Corporation.
USA: The recently launched USWA website, www.InsideAK.org, details various facets of AK Steel Corporation's operations, such as management credibility, customer and supplier developments, environmental and litigation risks, earnings quality, and executive compensation. Current features include in-depth analysis of the company's pension fund accounting and improper executive bonus compensation.
InsideAK.org provides up-to-date details about selected legal battles in which AK and its officers are involved, as well as the corporation's ongoing clashes with environmental enforcement agencies over the company's alleged failure to comply with pollution control regulations. This includes analysis of environmental matters at four facilities, focusing on the growing risk of environmental liabilities.
The USWA has a struggle with AK Steel which is now entering its fourth year. In September 1999, the company (then Armco), instead of accepting the union's offer that workers remain on the job during their contract negotiations, used armed paramilitary security guards and locked out 620 union members at its plant in Mansfield, Ohio. Since then, the mill has been run with replacement workers. In February 2002, AK refused an offer by the USWA to submit outstanding issues to arbitration. Although in September 2002, in a good faith effort to end the lockout, union negotiators accepted a comprehensive contract proposal from AK Steel, the company conditioned acceptance of the contract on a demand that the union accept dismissals of its members based only on company claims of alleged misconduct.
The USWA has now filed a series of federal unfair labour practice charges against AK Steel with the National Labor Relations Board, challenging the company's demand that the union abandon its right to defend its members. The union accusation also states that AK refused to execute the contract accepted by the union in September and discharged 29 employees in support of its illegal bargaining demand. Such conduct, states the union's filing, renders the lockout illegal, which could mean full back pay from the date of the company's unlawful conduct.