AK Steel restarts Zanesville's cold rolling mill

AK Steel announced Thursday that it will restart the idled cold rolling mill at its Zanesville Works in Ohio. In a statement, the company said they will restart the mill, idled since June 2005, because of strong demand for electrical sheet steels. The mill was previously idled to consolidate production at lower cost plants, the company said. Fourteen hourly employees, laid off in June 2005 when the unit closed, have been called back to work. The employees returning to the Zanesville plant are members of the United Autoworkers of America Local 4104, which ratified a six-year contract with AK Steel in May, covering about 200 hourly production and maintenance employees in Zanesville. In April 2006, the company restarted the annealing and pickling units at Zanesville, which had been closed since March 2005.