MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) -- The union president who led workers during a nearly 13-month lockout at AK Steel Holding Corp.'s biggest mill says he will not run for another term.þþ''I'm looking to retire,'' Brian Daley told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. ''It's been a tough year.''þþAfter butting heads with the company for months in attempt to get a new deal for employees at the Middletown Works, Daley, 52, oversaw last year's affiliation of the Armco Employees Independent Federation with the Machinists union on the premise that it could help negotiations.þþInstead, officials of the international union took over the final negotiations. Daley, who will wrap up 33 years at AK Steel and its predecessor Armco at the end of the year, did not learn of the settlement until just hours before it was made public Feb. 28.þþHe said Thursday that he wasn't sure whether the Machinists international will assert more control over the formerly independent AEIF.þþ''Certainly there will be a new generation of officers,'' he said.þþMachinists spokesman Jim Tyler said the international had no plans to assume control of Local 1943. Company spokesman Alan McCoy said he was not aware of Daley's decision and had no comment.þþWhoever they are, the new leaders will inherit a different union than Daley did in 2005.þþMembership, which stood at 2,500 when the lockout began, has dropped to fewer than 1,400 because of retirements and resignations. The local is eliminating seven of its 19 staff positions, Daley said.þþ''We have a serious decline in our income,'' Daley said. ''We're looking at all expenditures.''þþChief Executive James Wainscott has said that employment at the Middletown Works, which had a guaranteed work force of 3,114 under the contract that expired Feb. 28, 2006, will be about 2,000.þþThat means about 30 percent of the work force will be new hires or former temporary workers who are not union members. Daley said the union will try to persuade those workers to join.þþThe agreement approved March 15 provided for all eligible union workers to be recalled by June 15. The company beat the deadline by a month, with the last of all but a handful of workers returning to the mill this week.þþMcCoy, Daley and Tyler said there had not been any significant problems returning union workers into the Middletown Works.þþ''It's been a smooth transition, for the most part,'' Daley said.þþMcCoy said fewer than a dozen eligible union members -- a handful on military leave or on medical hold -- remain off the job.þþ''We started with about 1,620 that would have been eligible and between quits and no-shows or those rejected for one reason or another, we end up with 1,400,'' McCoy said. ''Many of those were people who did not respond or at some point in the process decided not to proceed.''þþHe declined to say how many failed a physical or drug test.þþWainscott told analysts last month that AK would spend about $18 million this quarter on costs of ending the lockout, but that new labor contracts would save the company about $100 million a year.þþDaley said he didn't take seriously speculation earlier this week that ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steel maker, planned to bid for AK Steel. But he would like to see AK bought by a company that will make significant capital investment in facilities.þþ''Sooner or later, there will be a new owner here,'' he predicted.þþWainscott has said repeatedly that AK wants to remain independent.þþAK Steel makes flat-rolled carbon steel and stainless and electrical steel used in cars and appliances. The company's biggest mill and headquarters are in Middletown, about 30 miles north of Cincinnati, with smaller plants in Zanesville, Mansfield and Coshocton, Ohio; Ashland, Ky.; Rockport, Ind.; and Butler, Pa.þþ
Source: NY Times
