(OLEAN, NEW YORK) – Concerns over on-the-job safety spurred more than 100 Workers employed at the Italian-owned Cimolai-Hy Steel Fabricating Plant in the Southern Tier City of Olean to successfully Unionize with the United Steelworkers (USW) by a vote of 60-to-47.

Around 65% of the 125-Member Workforce had signed Union Authorization Cards and withstood pushback from management in the final weeks before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Union Election, USW Officials said.

“This is a ‘big win,’” USW District 4 Director David Wasiura tells WNYLaborToday.com. “It’s a former Siemens (Energy) and Dresser-Rand Facility and we knew we had some support down there from the Workers. ‘It shows they believed they were better off with a Union.’”

Worker Tim Skroback - who formerly worked at the Dresser Industries Plant for 34 years before staying on after Siemens Energy took over, told WNYLaborToday.com the new USW Members are “very excited” about Going Union and are looking forward to what can be achieved by their Bargaining Committee in seeking solutions to what they see as problems inside the Facility.

“We ‘need some safety policies because there are none.’ ‘It’s not a good’ feeling,” said Skroback, 59, who is on the Bargaining Team. “We have people from Italy inside the plant ‘and there are a lot of questions we would like to have answered.’ ‘And, our wages are not that great.’”

USW District 4 Sub-Director Joe Vertalino said the Organizing Drive initially started when a Cimolai-Hy Employee, who had worked for Siemens, began conversations with the USW.

“We started a conversation in the Summer and the NLRB Election took place in August,” Vertalino (Pictured Below/WNYLaborToday.com Photo) said. “The Workers ‘were concerned about air quality issues and it turned out to be a quick campaign.’ The vote took place during the first week of August. We start negotiations on a first contract on December (10th).”

The history of the 88-acre Paul Clark Drive site can be traced back to the Clark Brothers Company - which merged with the Solomon R. Dresser Company in 1938 to create the Dresser-Rand Company. It opened the Olean Plant in 1912.

Years later, the operation was acquired by Siemens Energy, which closed the Facility back in 2022 - and in the process, eliminated several hundred good-paying manufacturing jobs, which struck an immediate blow to the Olean Community and its economy.

Then in September 2022, Cimolai-HY acquired the state-of-the-art Olean Plant that features one million square feet of covered production, storage and office space.

Cimolai-HY is a partnership between HY Steel LLC (a Division of the Related Companies L.P.) and Cimolai S.p.A., with both being viewed as industry leaders with proven track records in their respective fields, according to information posted on their website.

Cimolai-HY is said to combine the unique capabilities of each to provide best-in-class structural steel design and fabrication services to its clients. Beyond bridges, the Cimolai name is perhaps best known for the construction of stadiums around the world. From Europe to the Middle East, Africa and the U.S., Cimolai has fabricated some of the most complex stadiums in the world.

HY Steel has also delivered on some of the largest scale structural steel projects in the United States and has a wealth of experience in the development and execution of complicated projects, achieving aggressive schedules and establishing and coordinating complex supply chains.

Cimolai-HY also boasts of unmatched experience in the construction of commercial and high-rise buildings, rooted in New York City’s Hudson Yards that include the Oculus, the Shed and 30 Hudson Yards - a 1,300-foot-tall building with 2.6 million square feet of space and more than 100,000 tons of steel, constructed above an active railyard.

Back in Olean, USW Bargaining Committee Member Skroback said first contract negotiations will center on improving wages at the plant (which currently stands around $22 an hour, according to USW Officials), and of course, workplace safety.

“We’re ‘looking at creating a Joint’ Safety Committee (at the Olean Plant),” Skroback said. “But right now we’re talking to our Members ‘in terms of what their interests are and what they want’ (to see included in a new contract).”

USW District Director Wasiura continued to be ecstatic about the organizing victory, saying: “(The Workers) ‘have put their trust in gaining a livelihood in the United Steelworkers.’ ‘It’s always an uphill battle because companies always do what they can to keep their power’ (over their Employees).”

“And Workplace safety ‘is always at the top of mind in every campaign.’ ‘It all starts and ends with safety,’” he added. “‘If you’re not coming home safe at the end of the day - what are we doing?’”