By Connie Cartmell
The final agreement that will bring 900 Ormet Corp. employees back to work was reached Friday.
A power agreement with American Electric Power Co., announced Friday by Ormet, means that the 900 hourly workers, all members of United Steelworkers Union, will return to the company’s reduction plant, located in Hannibal, Monroe County, in a phased plan.
One-hundred-fifty workers returned to the plant this week, while another 100 workers will return by January to assist with the re-start, company officials said. One hundred new jobs may also be available due to the number of former workers that have moved on to other jobs or retired.
“(The workers) won’t be doing their own jobs right away, but will be helping with restarting, which is going to be a huge job,” said Ken Campbell, chief executive officer at Ormet, a major U.S. producer of aluminum, aluminum billet products and smelter-grade alumina.
“It will take us about six months from start to full ramp up.”
Prior to August when dozens of workers returned to the plant after agreeing with the company on a labor agreement, more than 1,200 union members had not worked at either of Ormet’s two Monroe County plants since going on strike in November 2004.
The power agreement means the company will be able to afford to reopen the six potlines at the reduction plant to full capacity. The company’s other Hannibal facility, an aluminum rolling mill, was sold to Aleris International last December and is not in operation.
The favorable agreement with AEP was helped along by the fact that the price of aluminum has more than doubled on the world market in the past two years that the plant has been closed.
“The price we’re paying now is higher than what was being paid when we closed down, but less than retail. We’re about in the middle,” Campbell said.
Electricity is a key component of the reduction plant’s mission.
The aluminum product, later used in the manufacture of automobiles, airplanes, construction, even in new housing, begins with powdered alumina, which is poured into pots, “zapped” with electricity, turned to molten metal, then poured into molds to be sold.
Late Friday, Monroe County officials, a worker at the cast house in the reduction plant and a union representative described their feelings about the news.
“This is very good news for the valley,” said Mark Shaw, contract coordinator with United Steel Workers.
“It’s been 26 months, the work stoppage was for 22 months and it’s been another three to four months negotiating with AEP,” he said.
Chuck Green, a nearly 18-year Ormet employee, said he’s heard rumors of the power agreement, but was thrilled to hear the news Friday.
Green 48, of 163 Cornerstone Drive, Marietta, returned to Ormet in mid-August after the labor agreement was finalized, but said the power agreement provides some security for his job too.
“I’m very pleased because if we didn’t get the power agreement and didn’t get the potlines up and running there’s no way we could get the cast house to survive, where I work,” Green said.
“With the pot rooms the cast house will survive. Without the pot rooms the whole plant would shut down eventually. ... It wasn’t cost effective the way we were having to do it.”
The average worker at the reduction plant earns about $20 an hour, along with full health care (no contribution), a 401K and pension plan. With all benefits, it works out to about $70,000 a year, Campbell said.
The response of Monroe County officials was quick and emotional.
“Fantastic,” said Francis “Sonny” Block, president of the board of Monroe County Commissioners. “Our prayers have been answered.”
Monroe Commissioner Gary Hudson breathed a sigh of relief, saying late Friday commissioners knew the agreement might be coming, but didn’t know when.
“I knew they were close,” Hudson said. “I’m elated. It’s fantastic news, I just can’t tell you. It’s time we had some good news in Monroe County.”
The ongoing strike and plant closure at Ormet caused the unemployment rate to soar to the highest in the state, 11.3 percent in May. By August, Hudson said the number dropped to a bit over 9 percent, still not good.
“We were up there before the plant even shut down,” he said. “This should help us out a lot, although all the employees going back to work are not from Monroe County.”
It’s expected some new jobs will be created next spring after all union members are recalled.
“We will be short people by the time we recall everybody,” Campbell said. “We know some of our workers have retired, some moved on to other jobs. The good news is there will be a bunch of new jobs for the last 100 people or so.”
The news is good, economically, for the entire region, said Mike Jacoby, director of Southeastern Ohio Port Authority.
“I think this is a big relief for the Mid-Ohio Valley,” Jacoby said. “Ormet is a big, big employer and this will ripple throughout the region.”
“We have companies in Washington County that supply Ormet,” Jacoby said.
At the same time, there was bad news for Burnside, La., where Ormet also announced Friday it will close the Burnside Alumina Division by the end of the year. Jobs will be gone for 250 employees there.
Workers from Burnside are not expected to be hired in Ohio for the Hannibal plant, he said, because of the vast distance between the two sites and because ample construction jobs have opened up there since Hurricane Katrina.
Loren Hartshorn, president of the local USWA 5724, said Campbell deserves the bulk of the credit for getting the plant back to being operational.
“His efforts are really appreciated,” Hartshorn said. “Ken was the major player in being able to successfully get a labor agreement and to now successfully reach a long-term agreement with American Electric Power.”
Campbell, at the helm of the dark and lifeless Ormet plant at Hannibal only since April, made a prediction to the handful of management employees left the day he arrived.
“I told them when I came that first day that I was going to fill the parking lot,” he said, adding that the plant is back online through the work of everyone involved.
“For some reason, everybody suddenly wanted to help and they did,” Campbell said. “They dropped their own agendas. It was cool to watch.”
Marietta Times reporter Sam Shawver and editor Justin McIntosh contributed.
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