WARREN - The labor contract covering about 1,300 steelworkers at the Severstal Warren steel mill, along with two other Severstal mills, is expected to continue day-to-day after another extension expired Tuesday.
"There's no talk of a work stoppage of any kind," said Tony Montana of the United Steelworkers.
"We have every reason to believe that we will work through our issues to reach a mutually beneficial labor agreement without a disruption of our operations," Severstal North America Inc. spokeswoman Markida Diamond wrote in an e-mail from the company's Dearborn, Mich., headquarters.
Diamond added that Severstal has a "good relationship with the USW. We are in discussions and don't comment in the public domain about the status of our labor negotiations."
The contract expired Nov. 1, 2008, but has remained in effect through numerous monthly extensions. The latest extension lasted four months.
Talks have been stalled partly because Severstal insists on outsourcing some skilled trades jobs, including ironworkers and millworkers, union leaders have said.
Besides Warren, negotiations include about 2,500 workers at Sparrows Point in Baltimore and 2,200 at Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel in Wheeling, W.Va.
The two sides are believed to be talking informally about the many scenarios facing both the company and union.
Russia-based Severstal, which spent $2.2 billion to acquire the mills in 2008, reportedly is trying to sell the mills.