UPDATE
According to a news release issued from Constellium Rolled Products in Ravenswood, approximately 700 production and maintenance employees represented by the United Steel Workers Local 5668 commenced a strike at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.
The two parties have been negotiating for a new deal since late May, but their discussions failed to resolve the ongoing deadlock.
The union refused a contracted earlier this week that would provide hourly employees with a net gain of more than $23,000, over the life of the contract delaying changes to the healthcare plan into 2014 and 2015.
After an attempt to address the concerns, the company presented an alternative proposal that only would have required employees to make monthly contributions to their healthcare benefits and share in the future cost increases.
UPDATE
According to an employee at Constellium Rolled Products in Ravenswood, a strike will begin Sunday at 12:01 a.m. if an agreement is not met beforehand.
ORIGINAL STORY
The talks between Constellium Rolled Products Ravenswood, LLC. and its union broke down on Wednesday. The United Steel Workers Local 5668 canceled the contract extension and issued a strike warning, according to company officials on Wednesday night.
The union's formal notice would go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 4.
"As we said when we presented the latest offer, the proposal provides employees real economic benefit while ensuring their families still have quality, affordable healthcare benefits," said CEO Kyle Lorentzen in a company news release.
"In addition to increasing the economic benefits for employees, we offered to delay much-needed changes to our healthcare so that employees do not begin paying monthly premiums until 2015. We believe this is a good compromise, but it is unfortunate that the Union refuses to even present it to the employees."
The old contract expired July 15. Since then, both sides have been trying to negotiate a compromise agreement. Union members voted last week against the latest company offer. More talks resumed on Monday, but broke down by Wednesday afternoon.
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