Northwestern Steel & Wire Co. and the United Steelworkers of America said they reached a tentative, four-year labor agreement covering about 1,900 employees in Illinois and Texas.
The agreement covers about 1,700 workers in Illinois–at its headquarters facility in Sterling and Rock Falls–as well as about 200 workers in Houston.
Details of the pact between the structural-steel company and union Local 63 were withheld until after members can vote on it later this month. A company spokesman did say, though, that wages and pension benefits were increased.
The new contract was signed two days after an arbitrator settled a contract dispute between the steelworkers and Bethlehem Steel Corp., which has a big mill in Burns Harbor, Ind.
The arbitrator sided with the company and awarded Bethlehem Steel’s 11,000 unionized workers a $1-an-hour raise spread over the next three years, plus lump sum bonuses of $500 in 1998 and 1999.
