Heat Treat Industry News
February 03, 2010
ArcelorMittal to restart blast furnace
EAST CHICAGO -- The glow of molten metal will be the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel as ArcelorMittal and United Steelworkers of America Local 1011 officials announced the restart of the No. 4 blast furnace and the No. 3 steel producing plant.
Plummeting orders and a crippled economy idled the blast furnace in May, sending more than 700 workers to other jobs on the east side of the Indiana Harbor Works or putting them out of work, said Tom Tyrka, Local 1011 president.
The steel-producing plant had been closed months before that, Tyrka said.
In a written statement, an ArcelorMittal spokesman would say only the two facilities are being reopened "in response to improving market demand."
The closure left union officials scrambling to find other work for members or helping them deal with voluntary and involuntary layoffs. Friday's report had Tyrka and his officers hustling to share the good news, he said.
That means union officials will be calling as many members as they can reach to see if they are interested in returning to the sites, Tyrka said.
"This is excellent news, couldn't be better," he said. "We went from trying to find temporary positions or transfers to other parts of the plant for people to now filling (employment) holes with the startup."
Some are older employees who took voluntary layoffs, earning 80 percent of their pay rate, while others who were laid off involuntarily may have found other jobs or transferred to other parts of the plant, Tyrka said.
That process will take time, but so will getting the blast furnace and the shop back up to full employment, Tyrka said. "It's not going to be one massive call back," he said. "As things ramp up, it'll be on an as-needed basis."
Until the No. 4 blast furnace was idled, Local 1011 represented 1,440 maintenance and production workers.
BY MICHAEL GONZALEZ, POST-TRIBUNE CORRESPONDENT
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