A whopping 95% of 1,300 United Steelworkers agreed to authorize a possible strike against Allegheny Technologies Inc. after more than a year of stalled contract negotiations, union officials said.

The vote included more than 420 members who cast their ballots at the union hall on Brackenridge Avenue by 5 p.m. Friday. Voters collectively hailed from ATI sites at nine locations, including four in the Alle-Kiski Valley.

“I’ve never seen unity like this in my whole working career,” said Todd Barbiaux, president of Local 1196, a 33-year steelworker who represents workers at ATI’s Brackenridge facility in Harrison. “The hands-on steel people, we’ve had enough. It’s full throttle.”

The union members aim to persuade the global metals company to offer better wages, benefits and working conditions amid stalled contract negotiations.

If they proceed to strike, it will be the first against ATI since the mid-1990s.

“While we’re disappointed our employees have authorized a strike, we continue to work hard to reach resolution,” ATI spokeswoman Natalie Gillespie said by email. “As we’ve stated all along, our goal is to maintain stability for our employees, our customers and our business.

“We do not want a work stoppage,” Gillespie said. “We continue operating to meet our commitments to customers and avoid disruption to our employees and their families.”

The union claims ATI is demanding a four-year agreement that “erodes most everything that we have gained over the years, including wages, health insurance, contracting out protections, overtime pay and scheduling.”

Local workers also have been rattled by recent waves of layoffs — with as many as 200 positions to be eliminated in the Alle-Kiski Valley by summer — and the expected shuttering of the melt shop at the Brackenridge site.

“It’s time for the top executives and managers to stop worrying about the price of their stock and figure out how to invest in the company’s most valuable asset — the workers who built the company and keep it going,” the USW contract negotiating committee wrote in a statement announcing the vote tabulated Friday night.

The company argues that employees would be better off financially in every year of its proposed four-year contract.

“While we are working toward reaching agreement with the USW, we are also taking steps to ensure continuity for our customers,” Gillespie said.

It’s unclear when a potential work stoppage might happen. The process must be approved by international union leaders and the chief negotiator.

Union officials seemed hopeful the authorization vote might prompt ATI to renegotiate to avoid a strike.

“It is clearly in the best interest of everyone to resolve the outstanding issues through collective bargaining without a work stoppage, but ATI must change its approach before we can achieve a fair contract,” the USW said in its statement. “We urge ATI to return to the table and negotiate in good faith rather than engage in unfair labor practices and to demand unnecessary and unfair concessions from workers, who have not had a wage increase since 2014.”

The union’s last contract with ATI was approved in 2016 after a six-month lockout, the first in the company’s history.

Negotiations for a new contract initially started in January of last year. Dozens of USW members rallied outside ATI’s Harrison facility last February clamoring for better wages and benefits, then in March, both sides agreed to a one-year extension while grappling with the pandemic.

Talks resumed in January of this year, but no progress was made by the time the extended contract expired Feb. 28.

“After two months of dragging its feet at the table and suggesting that USW members ‘work overtime’ to pay for proposed increases to health insurance costs, management clearly needs a reminder that workers are united against the company’s demands,” the union wrote in Friday’s statement.

The company says employees laid off from the Brackenridge No. 3 Finishing Department and Waterbury would be eligible for shutdown pensions immediately upon the ratification of a new contract.

The only strike against ATI in recent decades happened in 1994, Barbiaux recalled. It lasted 69 days.

ATI officials have claimed the union’s demands haven’t changed since before the pandemic and fail to take into account the “economic meltdown” that followed: “Those demands didn’t make sense for the business then and certainly don’t now,” the company wrote in an update for employees.

Financial reports disclosed to investors show ATI took a $1.12 billion hit in the last three months of 2020, much of it related to weak demand for products in 2020 and one-time restructuring costs.

Still, executives said in January they were pleased with higher-than-expected revenue. They anticipated strong performance in the second half of 2021 as ATI changes its focus from standard stainless-steel sheets to specialty metals for aerospace, defense and energy clients.

Up to $85 million in upgrades will be invested into ATI’s Vandergrift site as part of that transition.

Since 2019, ATI is poised to have shed at least 800 jobs from its specialty and standard rolled products operations, according to Gillespie. Employment in the Pittsburgh area will have decreased from 1,700 at the end of 2019 to 1,500 at the end of 2021.

RELATED: ATI reports $1.12B loss in last 3 months of 2020; advances layoff, cost-cutting plans

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