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Remaking steel: without throwing its retirees on the slagheap. (Dispatches).

Article Excerpt
HIS UNION'S MISSION, SAYS LEO GERARD, United Steelworkers of America's international president, is "saving these damn plants for our members, retirees and the next generation of workers"--not for corporate executives or nonunion subcontractors. With temporary import protections now providing a little stability for the battered American steel business, United Steelworkers is actively encouraging the reorganization of the fragmented, mainly bankrupt industry into fewer, stronger companies.

Many analysts have written off the steel industry as hopeless, and most of those who haven't assume that steel companies can only survive by dumping all of their responsibilities to retirees, drastically slashing employment of union workers, and cutting wages and benefits. But the union believes that the industry can be saved--and the living standards of both workers and retirees protected--if owners invest in newly consolidated operations, excess management is trimmed, and workers and the union are given a stronger voice, from a redesigned shop floor on up. In recent months, these changes are precisely what the union has been securing.

In Europe, government policies such as health insurance and income protection pick up much of the social cost of the recent steel-industry consolidation, rather than imposing it on either workers or the companies. But in the United States, the Steelworkers have had to...