Almost a year and a half after the merger of United Steelworkers of America and Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers, local and international leaders of the newly formed United Steelworkers say they are stronger together than they were individually.

Workers have more bargaining power, and the union is better able to mobilize and support workers facing tough negotiations.

The union has better leverage on the state and national political scenes, officials say.

The merger also has generated new energy, as was evident Wednesday at the Worthington Industries plant in Porter, where workers voted 97-76 in favor of joining a union.

It was the third attempt at organizing since the plant opened in the early 1990s. It was the first time the USW became involved, rallying about 200 workers.

“I don’t think the merger had anything to do with this particular organization drive, but the merger has strengthened the union as a whole and brought new, fresh talent to the organizing. A lot of the people that worked on the campaign were ex-PACE members,” said Tom Long, the lead organizer for the effort.

Long, who works at Republic Steel in Gary, has been a volunteer organizer for about a year and a half. He expects that fresh talent to continue being a factor in future organization campaigns in the region.

A stronger presence

He isn’t the only one who sees a stronger union presence.

“I think the union now has greater presence throughout the economy in order to press for policy change,” said Marco Trbovich, assistant to the international present for USW, listing one of several advantages to the merger.

Trbovich, a Hammond native and Clark High School graduate who left the area in 1970, said USW is the largest union, representing eight or nine sectors of the industrial economy. That includes everyone from steel workers to pharmacists.

The union has 850,000 active members internationally, including Canada and Puerto Rico. Its total membership, including active and retired workers, is 1.2 million.

Trbovich, from his office in Pittsburgh, as well as others active in the union, saw few, if any, downsides to bringing the two groups together.

“There are always challenges when marrying two organizations, whether it’s a union or a corporation, but there is staff education and training under way to move us toward a smoothing of two organizations into one,” he said.

Locally, any difficulties related to the merger “have been virtually nonexistent,” said Jim Robinson, director for District 7 of the USW, which incorporates all of Illinois and Indiana.

The merged union has 20,000 members in Northwest Indiana, including the steel workers in the mills and former PACE workers at BP Refinery in Whiting.

Because there haven’t been any high-profile disputes in the region involving the industries represented by the union, it’s hard to pinpoint an instance where the merged union played a role, Robinson said.

The merger has made a difference on the internal educational programs done by the union, and its representation in Indianapolis, he said.

“We’re working very hard and effectively, I think, at trying to improve our bargaining position in the industries we represent.”

Another merger

For PACE members, the merger was nothing new. In 1999, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union was swallowed up by PACE. Lynne Baker, a USW spokeswoman who was with PACE — and the OCAW before that — said this merger was bigger than the last, but many things, even the union logo, had been ironed out before the merger was complete.

Because the two organizations together are so large, she said the action was “a little like trying to turn a ship around.”

Still, she listed a number of instances across the country —including the end of a lockout of union members at a pharmacy benefits company in Las Vegas and bargaining for workers in the paper industry in Maine — in which the strength of USW was in its numbers.

“With a bigger union, we found we can mobilize our members better and more quickly,” said Baker, who is based in Nashville, Tenn.

Like Baker, Bill Phillips, president of Local 7-1 at BP, has been through the previous PACE merger. USW now represents about 1,000 workers at the Whiting plant.

PACE members have been part of an oil policy program, which “allows us to bargain with an industry, not just one company, and that was one of the goals of the steel workers in the merger, to bargain with the industry,” Phillips said.

Workers at BP received a contract before the merger, so belonging to the larger union didn’t come into play during negotiations.

On a day-to-day basis, the merger has had little, if any, impact.

“For the working person, I’m not sure it’s changing anything, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s more of a change in the way the union is administered,” Phillips said.

There has been some turnover in the officers at USW Local 1014 at Gary Works, but that was not related to the merger, said Jerry Littles, president of the local, who took office in May.

Only one of the 11 people on the executive board there was retained during an April election.

“There is a lot of discontent with the last contract and a lot of the local officers bared a lot of the blame for the contract,” Littles said, adding the blame should have fallen on representatives from the international union, since they negotiated the contract.

“Personally, I believe the merger is a good thing. It increases our financial base,” Littles said.

It’s 'just better’

Gary Works had 21,000 union members in 1980, and is down to 2,700. Though the mill puts out more tonnage that it did 26 years ago, technology has allowed the mill to function with fewer employees, Littles said.

A drop in union members makes the merger that much more important.

The strength of the merged unions is crucial as trade laws shift American jobs overseas, and the National Labor Relations Board tries to narrow which employees are eligible to join unions, said Paul Gipson, president of USW Local 6787, which represents workers at Mittal Steel’s Burns Harbor plant.

As consolidation was good for the steel industry, it’s good for the union representing its workers as well.

When the mills were owned by different corporations, “we did not communicate that often. Now we communicate on a weekly basis because we’re working at the same company,” Gipson said, adding the workers share the same values.