Steel Mills

U.S. Steel Workers to Get Big Bump in Pay

October 17, 2018

Details are beginning to leak about the tentative four-year labor contract between the USW and U.S. Steel. Workers will get a 14 percent raise spread across a four-year period, according to Reuters sources. That will be biggest pay raise the steelworkers have seen in several years. No increase was included in the last contract and the previous one raised wages by an average of 1.5 percent over the three-year term.

The benefit package will remain relatively unchanged with no premiums paid by steelworkers. The union successfully argued that U.S Steel’s proposed increases to healthcare would have negated any wage increases offered by the company. The affordable healthcare package with no premiums is one of the reasons union workers were willing to agree to a freeze in wages during the 2015 negotiations.

Now that an agreement has been reached with U.S. Steel, eyes are focused on ArcelorMittal negotiations, which have stalled over what the union has called “unfair and unnecessary” concessions.

“While our union has pursued every option to avoid a work stoppage, ArcelorMittal’s persistent, onerous and unnecessary demands for concessions may leave over 12,000 members with little choice,” said the USW in an Oct. 12 update to members.

ArcelorMittal did not respond to requests by SMU for comment on the ongoing negotiations.