Locked out workers block ship from leaving US STEEL

Locked-out U.S. Steel workers mounted a second effort to prevent a ship leaving Hamilton with valuable steelmaking coal.
By about 8:30 on Wednesday night, an estimated 70 workers and some community supporters occupied the Burlington Canal Lift Bridge to stop a vessel leaving Hamilton Harbour. In March, U.S. Steel began moving coke from its Hamilton plant to other plants.
“Basically, we're saying there's a demand for steel in Canada and we feel they should be starting up Hamilton and making steel in Canada for Canada,” USW Local 1005 vice-president Gary Howe said in an interview from the bridge.
He couldn't say how long the blockade would last, but the previous one in March lasted 17 hours.
Earlier in the day, the steelworkers again rejected efforts to force a vote on the company's final offer. In a show-of-hands vote at its regular membership meeting Wednesday, about 200 members of Local 1005 turned a resounding “thumbs down” on the proposal.
Union leader Jake Lombardo estimated the vote was 90 per cent against the call.
“It wasn't even close again,” he said. “There were 200 people at the meeting and if there were 20 hands raised in favour of this, it would be a miracle.”
Workers at the former Stelco plant have been locked out since Nov. 7 in a dispute over pensions. An anonymous flyer circulated among members last week urged them to force union leaders to hold a vote on the company's final offer.
U.S. Steel chairperson John Surma has said the company is willing to reopen negotiations, but only once workers accept key radical changes to the pension plans. It also wants to end indexing payments for 9,000 current retirees.
When the idea of a union vote was put to the members in November, it was rejected 150 to 16. That ballot was seen as a vote of confidence in 1005's leaders.
The company has accused union leaders of conducting an “ideological crusade.”
Steve Arnold THE SPEC