2/18/10

PBGCFACTS

As members know the PBGC took control – or became the trustee of – our terminated National Steel Pension Plan in 2002. As some time has passed since most of us have concerned ourselves with the PBGC, below is information regarding your PBGC Pension which may be helpful.

The PBGC guarantees most, but not all, pension benefits in plans that it insures.

¨ The PBGC does not recognize service earned after the termination date of our pension plan.

¨ Because the PBGC did not cover our plan’s full pension benefit, the benefit percentage paid members upon retirement is reduced.

¨ PBGC does not guarantee non-pension benefits (such as a death benefit).

¨ PBGC does pay (if not waived by participant) a Qualified Joint-and-Survivor Annuity when a member retires.

¨ If you chose an annuity that pays benefits for the life of your beneficiary (such as a joint-and-survivor annuity), PBGC will pay these benefits only to the beneficiary you chose when you retired.

¨ The earliest age to begin drawing your PBGC Pension is age 60.

¨ Being deemed disabled by Social Security after our retirement plan was taken over by PBGC does not make you eligible to draw PBGC benefits earlier than age 60.

For More Information: 1-800-400-7242 or go to: www.pbgc.gov

PBGC Customer Contact Center hours are 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern Time, Monday - Friday (except Federal holidays).

-Labor Donated-

October 6th, 2009

President’s report:

Grievances:

This months 3^rd step meeting will include the grievance for using a hair test for the return to work physical and 6 grievances for those were laid off out of order.

This month’s 2^nd step will include a grievance filed for preferencing violation in the Electric Shop. This issue involves a junior MTE assigned to a special assignment on the day shift.

Also to be heard is the grievance for the Maintenance Base force manning level. This grievance pertains to the Plant 20 hour overtime.

We have one grievance appealed to arbitration but we don’t have a date in October.

Preference sheets:

The preference sheets went out this week. You need to indicate all of your preferences 1 thru 4 for the area preferences and either shifts or days. You don’t want to leave it up to US Steel to make your decision. If you didn’t receive a preference sheet contact your area manager ASAP.

Training Committee:

There hasn’t been any resolution with US Steel over the size of the training committee yet. We’re moving this forward to get resolved. As stated before US Steel has refused to meet with us on training issues till we resolve this dispute. With the progress we’re making in resolving this issue I believe we’re headed for arbitration. There is still no report on the exact date when the learners program is suppose to start again, although it should start in the fall soon.

The Training committee is meeting and developing the administrative guidelines for the Learner program. This was a local issue at Contract time. After we talk to the Company we’ll have more information to share on this.

September’s Plant PLMC meeting:

US Steel reports that August was a bad month for Safety at Granite City and September is starting off bad too with 2 OSHA recordable injuries already. Our Union Safety Representative notes that the injuries for August were for all different reasons.

The blast furnaces (A & B) are running good. The new sun Coke facility is expected to start and have its first coke to us around October 14^th. The Co Gen is also expected to start in early October.

The Hot Strip Lo Nox project was finished this last week (Furnace 4). Furnace 4 is also expected to be lit this week. So now all 4 slab furnaces have had their burners upgraded to meet the EPA settlement agreement. Also the Hot Strip manager reports the Hot Strip is running well and up to capacity. The claims have been low indicating good quality.

The order book is not as strong as it was. Of course now were seeing that with the shutdown weeks being scheduled in December. Presently we can see 2 months out but beyond that the orders are hard to predict. Steel prices are up slightly.

Systems Repair:

We had 3 who passed the Systems Repair test. So we have a total of 5 who have passed the written part of the Systems Repair test. The hands on test will probably be taken at Gary Indiana since we don’t have the equipment here to do the test.

70E Arc Flash:

The Union safety committee and the Company met and identified some of the issues with the OSHA 70E regulation. Some of the issues identified were, the boundaries for untrained employees has yet to be set, Access to Electrical control rooms has yet to be restricted to either trained or permitted employees, the lack of oranges at the storeroom trailer and Electrical training for high voltage and arc flash training (agreed to at contract time). This was just the first meeting. We’ll be working with the managers on some of these issues as well as meet with Rich Diak in training after he returns from being off sick.

Overtime Guidelines:

At Contract time we secured an overtime agreement which states that our guidelines will be used for soliciting overtime. We’re presently doing that but the guidelines need some housekeeping to reflect some of the changes we have made. After the guidelines have been modified, the membership will get the final say in making the changes permanent at the December Union meeting.

In Solidarity,

Jeff Evans, See you Wednesday

Both notices for the December, 2009 shutdown of Granite City Works are posted below. Scroll down to view both notices.

August 3, 2009

Steelworker Sisters and Brothers:

Greetings

I’ll be traveling to Pittsburgh tomorrow with the other Granite City Works Union leadership to meet with the other Locals from the facilities around the country and US Steel. We’ll be getting a report about the state of the affairs with US Steel. Also we’ll be discussing matters concerning the 2009 Contract.

Attached also you’ll find a brief report from the local Union leadership about the Blast furnace incident. I know you’ll be thinking there are not many details that were shared. Of course this is by design. There is concern about sharing too many details that would end up with our competitors that would give them too much information about our operations. This could affect US Steel and our jobs detrimentally. I believe what is stated is all we can say at this time. Late flash- next week there would be some layoffs although I don’t believe they will affect Local 68 members.

All of our membership at this time is presently back to work. We lost around 8 members who have found better employment. Best wishes to them in their new careers. Presently the Learners are back at work although the Learner program is not up and running. It is expected that the learner program will restart in the fall. I’ll have more to report later after our training committee meeting with US Steel in about a week.

Presently US Steel is still operating at about 50% capacity. Although I’ve heard that Great lakes are coming back US Steel hasn’t confirmed that with us here at Granite City. I should have more to share about operations around the country when we return from Pittsburgh.

On the Local front there are a number of issues we are pursuing.

Ø We have challenged the hair testing for the return to work physical. We have a 2^nd step scheduled next week.

Ø We’re pursuing getting the area preferencing. US Steel is pretty much doing what they want with this. Presently this is in the first step. I’ll be getting all those of you affected to sign a complaint form.

Ø For those of you returning to work I guess you noticed that you didn’t receive incentive pay for your return to work safety school. I’ve written a complaint for everybody to sign and return to me. Make sure you get your name on a complaint form.

Ø There was a small group of members who were laid off improperly even though at the end US Steel was following seniority. I have those grievances going to the third step.

We settled the Contracting out settlement that was negotiated at Contract time. What we agreed upon was that the shop MTE’s would get around $3000.00 and the plant MTE’s would get around $177.00. Presently we’re putting together the pay requests for the award. You should have this in two pays.

Call me if there are questions.

In Solidarity

Thanks,

Jeff Evans

June 22, 2009

Last week late the three US Steel USW Locals signed an agreement that allowed US Steel to bring laid off members back to work without waiting till the beginning of the week but not be obligated to pay the forty hours minimum week pay. If you attended safety school at the end of the week you will get your sub pay regardless of being paid for safety school. The intent of this agreement was to get our laid off members back to work ASAP without waiting till the beginning of the week. This agreement only applies to this recall period and will not apply once you are back to work. This is information I meant to get out to you but I didn’t have the time.

For those of you who are recalled to work after being laid off more then 90 days US Steel will give you a physical before returning to work. During this physical US Steel is allowed to perform a drug test. The Union believes the drug test called for in the Contract is a urine test not a hair test that they are performing. The Union will be filing a grievance for US Steel using the hair test. I’ll be passing out a group complaint to be signed for those that were given a hair test.

For those of in need of Utility assistance last week one of our members informed me that Ameren was offering a $300.00 grant for those laid off 6 months and 1899 member Bob Thiel did some research on this and came up with the following.
You need to fax the following information to Ameren at 314-612-2807 Attn. Energy Assistance, A-10 Here’s what you need to fax
Name on Bill
Spouse name
Acct. #
Daytime phone #
E-mail address or just write NA
Date of unemployment
Address, city, state, and zip code
latest claim form from the state
She said the turn around is pretty fast.

I don’t have the latest Local 68 number recalled to the plant. The last number I heard was around 85 so you can see we still have a number of Local 68 MTE’s laid off. Also we still have the learners in limbo and I’m not sure when their recall will be even when all the MTE’s are recalled. US Steel is trying to keep their cost to restart Granite Works as low as possible. We will be having more discussions about the learners later.

Tomorrow the Granite City Rotary club is presenting a $15,000 check to the Steelworker Locals here in Granite City that are affected by the lay off. This money is intended for those of you with hardship cases. If you’re having problems paying your bills, call your Union President for assistance. This money will be put to good use for those who are losing their healthcare this month and having cost of the Cobra added to their monthly bills.

Keep in mind all those who are still laid off. Were still under the 7-point layoff minimization plan, which calls for a minimal use of overtime and the bargaining unit to perform all work that we can inside the plant (no contractors).

That’s all I have to report for now. For those of you are recalled, work safe. US Steel in a meeting today informed us that the safety rules would be strictly enforced after the fatality in Gary.

In Solidarity,

Jeff Evans

Click here to read the President's Blog We will soon be moving all of Jeff's updates to the Local 68 blog. Until all the kinks are worked out the updates will be posted here as well as in the blog.

All the important phone numbers usually listed in Jeff's updates are now permanently posted in the "Contact" link.

June 17, 2009

Steelworker Sisters and Brothers:

I have to say I’m extremely glad to see this extended layoff come to and end. There are so many that would lose their healthcare at the end of June. I know for those losing their healthcare that the hardships would have been close behind. With that said I’m hoping we can get most of our Steelworker brothers and sisters back to work. We must keep in our minds the economy is still in a tailspin. Granite City Works starting up is not a sign that the steel market has completely recovered even though there are sufficient orders within our niche of the market to bring Granite City Works back on line. I want to make two points here. First make good financial decisions since we could end up idled again. Then remember the Union is engaged in a battle with our foreign competitors advocating for fair trade not free trade. Your support for the legislation to support this is very important.

Since I had a meeting yesterday with Labor Relations I’ve got some information to share with you regarding callbacks. For the plant we have 590 employees recalled and of those 83 are MTE’s. The last MTE called back will have 12.09.1996 seniority. The Hot Strip will start first with slabs coming from Fairfield. The Blast Furnace will start B furnace first (the larger of the two). It’ll take time to bring the Blast furnaces up to temperature. After Iron making starts making good iron Steelmaking will restart. Also to my delight I heard that the 3G lines would restart in the near future (no date given).

VLO’s: Those on VLO’s can stay on them and will be called back last after all laid off MTE’s are recalled unless a request to return to work is turned in.

Learners: The Learner program is still suspended. First all the MTE’s must be recalled before any Learners are recalled. Then sometime after production starts the Learners program will restart. US Steel has allotted a limited amount of money to get Granite City Works started and US Steel doesn’t want to spend the money on the Learners program. I wasn’t given any date for the Learner Program to be restarted. I’ll be following up on this later.

Recalls: At the start of the recalls US Steel wasn’t following seniority but they are now (so I’m told). If you find out your seniority was been violated with a junior employee being recalled before you call me.

Physicals and Safety Training: If you’re called to have a physical and safety training you will be paid for both. I believe if your recalled you’re entitled to the 40-hour guarantee also.

Steelworkers Pension Trust: Contract Coordinator Randy Virgin wanted to remind those who are retirement minded that you don’t have to return to work in order to receive the $7500 retirement bonus. To qualify for the bonus you must be a Former National Steel Employees age 60 and older and retire between January 1, 2009 and the end of the term of this Agreement.

In closing here I want to remind all of you that we still have MTE’s laid off. This means that our layoff minimization plan is still in effect. The layoff minimization plan specifies that no contractors will be in the plant performing bargaining unit work and overtime will be held to a minimum. All of you are the policemen in the plant to help enforce this. Call me if there are any violations.

Thanks,

In Solidarity

Thanks,

Jeff Evans

June 10th, 2009

Steelworker Sisters and Brothers:

This update comes to you this week by email. The next update will be posted on line at the Local’s web address at www.usw68.org. I’ll send out a broadcast email to let you know when a new update will be posted. Mike Lamka created the new web site and will be handling updating the site weekly. The web site will be up and running this Monday (June 15^th). I know a number of you really don’t care for some information I send out so you can view all the information I consider relevant and relational to the work of the Union on the Web site. We owe Mike thanks for taking the job on for us at this critical time.

For those of you making trips to the General Office building (GOB) the new lobby hours for picking up forms and talking to a benefits person are 8:00 am to 3:00pm. Also Janet Segar our benefits gal is manning the lobby. Another change is in payroll. They laid off Kim and her supervisor is now answering questions for payroll (vacations, sub pay etc). Arina Huskovic at 451.3835 will answer your questions and take care of any issues. Both of these changes have to do with reducing staffing at the plant.

The order book for last 2 weeks has been picking up. In fact the orders have pasted the level for the last week that would require another facility to start. If this trend holds for a month we should see another facility start. The question though is which facility. I know we’ve been painting our facility blue for the last few years but I don’t know if we’re blue enough. Originally I thought green was US Steel’s favorite color (as in money green). But obliviously it isn’t since US Steel has benched one of their best (look at our profits for the last 5 years). I know the history US Steel has in the Mon Valley area with closing so many facilities in the 70’s and 80’s. They have a reputation to live down. We’ll see what the strategy is soon if the trends continue, green or blue.

June will be the 6-month mark for many who were laid off in December. Tuesday we had a meeting to review the cobra subsidies in the stimulus bill with those who are losing their health insurance in June (those who have between 2 and 10 years service). With all the questions and answers we had I wanted to mention some of the key points that were raised that made my notes. First to qualify for the stimulus subsidy you have to lose your healthcare insurance between September 2008 and January 1^st 2010. If you’re losing your healthcare at the end of June you won’t receive the Cobra letter till mid July. The letter you’ll be receiving will come from a third party called Employee Benefit Data Services (EBDS) not US Steel. You’ll need to pay attention to the dates you need respond to the Cobra letter. If you fail to respond within the designated time you won’t be able to get Cobra coverage. If you take the Cobra coverage the stimulus subsidy at this time is only good for 9 months and your present health insurance will continue the same (dental, vision, drug and healthcare). When open enrollment comes you will have the same option as working employees to switch from Blue Cross/Blue Shield to GHP. You’ll have to enroll in your spouse healthcare insurance if there is an option for you to enroll. If you do enroll in your spouse’s plan any monthly premiums greater than $50 will be reimbursed by US Steel (covered under your present contract). You’ll need to fill out the forms for the reimbursements. It’s very important not to let your healthcare lapse. If it does lapse the pre-existing clause in our contract (PIB) will apply. If you are receiving your PBGC you will not be eligible for the Cobra coverage subsidy. These are some of the main points I had although I’m sure there are other points I haven’t mentioned here. Call me with any of your questions.

The week of June 7^th 2009 we had a reduction of manpower. US Steel reduced the staffing in the plant across the board lying off a number of Electrical, Mechanical and operations employees. There was 5 MTE’s that were laid off. The Hot Roll, Cold Roll and the Shop areas were combined to 9 MTE’s. Steelmaking was held at 3 giving us a total of 12 MTE’s in the Steelworks. There wasn’t any new VLO’s. The youngest MTE in the plant had 02.02.1974 service time. There wasn’t any MTE’s that were retained out of order by the US Steel. The Union continues to protect the Steelmaking Grievance committeeman.

The number of MTE’s in the plant will stay the same for the week of June 14^th. The breakdown will be the same too. From here I’m hoping we don’t change. We’re at that point with such a low number in the plant that should we have any damage caused by a severe thunderstorm there could be a safety issue with high voltage repairs.

I’ve had a number of questions from those of you laid off and working. Some are being instructed by teleserve not to call back in since they’re working. We know that the requirement to be eligible for sub pay is to apply for Illinois unemployment. US Steel says that once you apply initially for unemployment that they don’t require you to apply again. So you won’t have to call teleserve if you are working full time if you’re working full time and ineligible for unemployment. Remember that even though you’re working you are still eligible for sub pay. Your weekly benefit will be reduced one dollar for every two dollars earned but in no case will your weekly benefit be less then $250.00. Also if you’re overpaid sub pay for any weeks, US Steel has the right to collect any overpayments.

China continues to try and replace our domestic steel industry by increasing Steel subsidies to their own steel producers this week, encouraging them to export steel. We need to remind our political leaders that our fate lies in their hands. That’s scary but true. The country’s conservative free traders have gotten us to this spot and we need to remember that. Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat the message needs to be the same. We need our manufacturing base. The Union may be calling on you to support this position. All of us need to get involved in driving the political process for change.

Remember that if you have two weeks of single day vacations (SDV) one week needs to be scheduled before July 1st. I’ve already been told that US Steel will schedule any unscheduled SDV over five after July 1^st. Also if you try to schedule any SDV more then two months out US Steel won’t schedule them (although some managers are). Labor Relations has requested that you submit a written request and the request would be granted on a first come first serve basis. The reason given for this is the plant may restart and they’ll need all hands on deck at that time. I wouldn’t read into this too much (plant restarting). US Steel is just covering the bases in case of a restart. They do have the right to deny SDV’s if the needs of the operations necessitate it.

I’m still waiting for an answer to latest proposal for the Contract settlement for Contracting out disputes settled at Contract time. I’ve given our Labor relations manager till June 19^th for an answer. If we can’t reach an agreement we’ll have to get our international involved. If there’s any resolution before then I’ll let you know.

Call me if there are questions.

In Solidarity

Thanks,

Jeff Evans