Chevy - very positive article from the Halifax paper. I wonder if Titanium would be one of the products being discussed? Looks like this story is heading in the right direction. (Not often do we get this type of glowing support from a unionite about a company-unless it is negotiation time and they dipping into their butter-up container)
Saturday, January 8, 2000
The Halifax Herald Limited
Firm treats staff well
Sysco suitor has good track record in U.S. - union
By David Jackson / Provincial Reporter
A company in the consortium trying to buy
Sysco has at least one steel success story
under its belt.
The Ohio-based Reserve Group, part of
consortium Rail Associates Ltd., breathed
new life into a Pennsylvania steel plant on
the brink of collapse in 1997, says the
plant's union boss.
Carl Runski, president of Local 9445,
United Steel Workers of America, said he
was one of three workers left at Edgewater
Steel in February 1997 after about 200
were laid off the previous month.
About a dozen offers came in for the plant,
but the Reserve Group was the only one
that wouldn't have gouged a new
workforce, he said.
"They seemed to be giving us a fairly good deal, which at that time we didn't think
we could get . . . because we had nothing to argue with," he said in an interview
from his home in New Kensington, Pa.
"I'd say because of what they put in (Edgewater) now, there's a future . . . for the
men down there. So I'd say the Reserve Group . . . takes care of whoever they
take over."
Mr. Runski said Edgewater now has about 170 workers and he's optimistic the
number could soon swell to 200 because of new orders.
The company, in operation for about 90 years, makes wheels for locomotives,
freight and passenger cars, cranes and other industrial machines.
The Reserve Group immediately wanted to provide Edgewater workers with a
hospital plan and reasonable wages, Mr. Runski said.
"I'd say they're very good business people and they have a lot of concern for the
people where they've taken over the place, which is very unusual for today's
business world," said Mr. Runski, an Edgewater employee for 31 years.
Information about the Reserve Group and the other companies involved in the
consortium has been hard to come by since the province announced Sysco's sale
Dec. 31.
The mill, which has cost taxpayers about $2.8 billion in the last 30 years, is
supposed to go for $30 million over 10 years.
Economic Development Minister Gordon Balser, responsible for Sysco, later said
the "sale," to be finalized April 15, is actually an "agreement in principle."
The province also gave incorrect information about the consortium, saying S & K
Steel Products Inc. was the lead company in Rail Associates.
Myles Paisley, owner of S & K and spokesman for Rail Associates, said S & K
would be part of the consortium after the deal is complete, but it isn't now.
Mr. Paisley said companies in the consortium will come and go as their expertise
is needed.
"We don't want a lot of people in the consortium to start out that we don't need.
The approval process becomes more complicated the more people you have to
ask for approval."
Mr. Paisley, an engineer with 39 years' experience in the railway industry, said he
couldn't be too specific about the potential purchase of Sysco because of
confidentiality clauses. He said only that the business plan calls for new product
lines.
There won't be a deal without a new contract with steelworkers, Mr. Paisley
said, declining to elaborate for fear of raising anxiety at the plant.
Liberal MLA Manning MacDonald, the previous minister responsible for Sysco,
said it's difficult to have confidence in a sale because he has so little information
about the consortium.
He also wonders whether a new product line would require an expensive plant
expansion, which nixed previous attempts to diversify.
Other consortium members include:
- Corus Consulting Ltd., a subsidiary of Corus, a new name combining
Hoogovens, which manages Sysco, and British Steel.
- Titanium Corp. of Canada, a small Toronto-based mineral exploration company
now looking at titanium deposits in Hants County.
- Holland Co., a U.S. welding firm.
- Amerifund International Finance Group, the financial division of Palmer
Holdings Ltd.
- William Powers.
Winzer |
