A few dozen ATI workers rallied outside the company’s Vandergrift plant Thursday as the deadline nears to reach a union contract, arguing the specialty metal manufacturer’s recent success should trickle down to the rank-and-file.

“We’re not asking for the moon and the stars,” said Keith Beavers, a maintenance technician and union unit chair at the Vandergrift facility. “We just want to get back a little bit of what we lost over the years.”

Between negotiations that caused a lockout in 2015 and 2016 and a strike in 2021, ATI workers lost their pension and profit-sharing benefits, all while getting only modest pay bumps.

The then-struggling company slashed hundreds of jobs over that span, at one point posting a quarterly loss in excess of $1 billion.

Times have changed. ATI made $368 million last year, according to financial statements, raking in a particularly strong fourth-quarter profit of $137 million.

Union members say it’s time for wages to get back on track with industry standards. They rejected a tentative agreement in March by an unknown margin.

“With base wage increases exceeding 26% across six years and enhancements to post-retirement and time-off benefits, we consider this to be an extremely competitive contract,” said ATI spokeswoman Natalie Gillespie.

This evidently wasn’t enough to sway a majority of workers, who are represented by the United Steelworkers.

“I just want to be on the same pay scale as U.S. Steel and Cleveland-Cliffs,” said Chad Claypool, a crane operator at the company’s Flat-Rolled Products facility in Harrison. “They’re drawing from the same labor pool and offering $5 (an hour) to $6 (an hour) less.”

Labor grades and job descriptions viewed by TribLive show this to be true, at least for Cleveland-Cliffs, a giant among domestic steelmakers with a stainless steel plant in Butler. ATI primarily produces nickel, titanium, specialty stainless and exotics alloys.

At Cleveland-Cliffs, for example, an operating technician or maintenance technician earns about $34 and hour, compared to $28 at ATI.

By the contract’s end, wages for ATI workers only would have been slightly higher than what their Cleveland-Cliffs counterparts currently make — a point that particularly frustrated Bobby Bowman, a furnace helper at the Brackenridge Operations in Harrison.

Workers also have viewed the lack of a contract ratification bonus as an affront. Past deals have included payouts in the ballpark of $2,000 to $5,000.

Some union members and representatives are hopeful, though, an ugly repeat of past work stoppages can be avoided.

The next bargaining meeting is set for Tuesday, and the parties have until April 30 before the existing contract is up.

Any draft contract would first go to the committees for each plant and, if deemed acceptable, be put up for a vote among membership.

“It’s not like we’re a long way off,” Beavers said. “I think a lot of the guys think we’re close.”

But, he added, “we’re not afraid to escalate it, if that’s what it takes.”

Gillespie said ATI is looking forward to resume negotiations.

Any deal — or lack thereof — would impact about 1,000 ATI workers, including ones in Harrison, Vandergrift and Latrobe.

The company is one of the Alle-Kiski Valley’s largest employers.

Its customers include aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin, NASA and SpaceX.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)