Thursday, Jul. 09, 2009

Granite City steel workers happy to be back on the job

GRANITE CITY -- Hundreds of steel workers have returned to work at U.S. Steel and hope more of their cohorts will follow.

The Granite City steel mill's 2,200 employees have been furloughed for more than six months and, according to United Steelworkers Local 1899 President Dan Simmons, about 800 have been called back over the past three weeks, with more coming back each week.

"With hot metal coming yesterday, we were able to start making steel," Simmons said. "It's looking fine now. We're going to keep pulling as needed in a steady steam of recalls."

U.S. Steel Corp. spokeswoman Erin DiPietro declined to comment further about the call back, but said workers are being brought back at U.S. Steel plants as orders require.

"We continue to adjust production across our operations to stay in line with customer demand and adjust our workforce as appropriate to match our production levels," DiPietro said.

On Wednesday, workers said they enjoyed the time off, spent time with their families, traveled and vacationed, but were happy to be back to work.

It was Phillip Johnson's second day back at the caster slab division, where he has worked for the past 21 years. The 45-year-old from Brussels, in Calhoun County, said he enjoyed his time off and did a lot of fishing.

"It was nice to have the time off," Johnson said. "It was nice, but we're back, and at least we've got a job."

"I'm glad to have my job back, but I was ready for vacation," said David Peterson, 44, of Granite City. "I was ready to head somewhere else for a while. I didn't think they'd open up this soon. We were expecting October, September."

George Yeager had been off for more than a year because he had back surgery prior to the plant's shutdown.

"And I went back for two weeks just to get laid off," said 49-year-old Granite City resident, who has worked at the steel mill for more than 30 years. "So I was looking forward to coming back. I just hung around the house and enjoyed being around my kids and my mom."

"I actually learned how to tuck-point and worked on houses," said Paul Reagan, of Pontoon Beach, who also has worked at the plant for more than 30 years.

A spokeswoman from the American Iron & Steel Institute in Washington said the U.S. steel market has witnessed slight gains in orders and production. She said capacity is running at about 49 percent after the industry dipped to 40 percent at the end of last year.

"That's a modest increase," institute spokeswoman Nancy Gravatt said. "We're just seeing it in little and small increments, a slight increase in production in nine of the last 10 weeks, but that's encouraging."

"I don't think (U.S. Steel) would be doing this if they didn't feel this way," Simmons said. "I'm hoping this isn't a bubble, and we're actually seeing a slow turn in the right direction in the economy as a whole."