BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

MASSENA -- United Steelworkers continue to fight Alcoa over retiree life insurance and union officials are urging their retired members not to take the company's cash offer.

Meanwhile, a union official says the Massena Arconic plant should be safe from cuts associated with a halt in production of the Boeing 737 Max airliner.

Alcoa informed the retirees by letter on Dec. 4 that it would eliminate life insurance coverage effective Dec. 31.

The company included with the letter a check “equal to a fraction of the face value of their life insurance coverage and a federal 1099 tax form, since the payment would be taxable,” United Steelworkers said in a news release.

The president of USW Local 420A, the union chapter representing Alcoa laborers, said they are urging the retirees to not cash the check while the case proceeds through the court system.

"When they sent the letter out Dec. 4, they put on the check 'if you sign this you are waiving all rights' to claims against Alcoa," USW Local 420A President Mark Goodfellow said.

The lawsuit was filed last month in the Southern District of Indiana as a class action, and three Alcoa retirees have joined the complaint as proposed class representatives. The Wenatchee Aluminum Trades Council, a coalition of unions representing workers at an Alcoa facility in Washington state, is also a plaintiff, USW said.

Goodfellow said he doesn't know how long the case might take to come to a resolution, and he hopes it will conclude by the end of the month "but probably not."

“We negotiated these retiree life insurance benefits with the company, and they are a critical part of our collective bargaining agreements with Alcoa,” USW International President Tom Conway said in statement in December. “The company agreed to provide these benefits. Abruptly cutting off this coverage is not only immoral, it’s unlawful.”

In other news, Goodfellow says Massena's Arconic plant will most likely be safe from cutbacks associated with a halt in production of the Boeing 737 Max.

USW Local 420A also represents about 130 laborers at that plant.

"The CEO (recently) announced in call to investors they were going to lose about $400 million off the 737 Max" "We really do not supply the aircraft industry that much … out of Massena," Goodfellow said. "We're just happy that as of right now, we don't feel we'll be affected. Anything's possible but I feel confident saying that."

Arconic was formed in 2016 after Alcoa split into two publicly traded companies. Alcoa makes what are referred to as "upstream products," such as aluminum, and Arconic makes engineered products for industries including automotive and aerospace.