BY ANDREA HOLECEK
holecek@nwitimes.com
219.933.3316

Operating Engineers Local 150 is on strike against the Levy Co., a contractor at Mittal Steel USA's Burns Harbor plant, claiming the company has engaged in unfair labor practices.

The local is not striking Mittal.

Levy employs about 115 workers at Mittal's plant, where it performs slag processing and metal reclaiming, said David Fagan, financial secretary for the Local 150's Merrillville office, which represents 3,500 workers in Northwest Indiana. The majority of Levy's employees are members of the union.

Local 150 has filed about 15 unfair labor practice charges against Levy with the National Labor Relations Board since April, when its labor agreement with the company expired, Fagan said.

The charges include: intimidating and threatening members engaged in lawful and protected activity; creating an impression of unlawful surveillance of employees; refusal to hire Local 150 members for job openings; and refusal to supply information to the local, which is the exclusive bargaining agent for the employees of the Levy Co., he said.

The company says the union has failed to recognize that labor-management relations have changed dramatically in the last 20 years, according to a prepared statement issued by the company through its spokesman, Berl Falbaum, a public relations consultant from Farmington, Mich.

Local 150 members working for Levy at Mittal are governed by terms of their previous five-year contract. Since negotiations broke off in June, when union workers turned down the company's best and final offer, Levy has hired about 10 nonunion members.

But in May, even before union members rejected the offer, almost 100 percent of the local's membership working for Levy voted to authorize the strike, Fagan said. Last week, union officials decided it was the appropriate time to strike, and they say they will continue striking and picketing the plant 24 hours a day, seven days a week until the "NLRB remedies and uses its processes to address the unfair labor practices," he said.

The members on strike will receive benefits from the union's strike fund, Fagan said.

If there is no remedy soon, the local may take similar action against Levy's other locations in Northwest Indiana, where about 90 of its members are employed, including: Levy Indiana Slab Co., operating at U.S. Steel Co. Gary Works, and Edward C. Levy Co, which is at Mittal Steel West, he said.

"It is something we're considering," Fagan said.

The company claims the union isn't being realistic.

"Recent bankruptcies and buyouts of major steel mills have propelled both union and management to find ways to control costs through more flexible work practices and pay programs, all within a more cooperative environment," the company's statements says. "The long-term goal is to save jobs in this very competitive climate. Unfortunately, unlike the steelworkers, Operating Engineers Local 150 fails to recognize the realities of today's economic environment."

Levy also claims other unions involved in similar businesses have made the necessary concessions to assure their own jobs and the economic viability, and vitality of the businesses in which they work.

"We hope that Operating Engineers Local 150 will display the same kind of foresight and flexibility that its sister unions have shown in negotiations, and that it returns to the negotiating table quickly to resolve outstanding issues," the statement says.

The United Steelworkers at Mittal's Burns Harbor plant are not involved in the strike.

"We typically support other unions with information and other forms of aid, but under the steel contract we have a no-strike agreement and can't honor picket lines," said Jim Robinson, USW District 7 director.