Allegheny Technologies Inc. and the United Steelworkers union have agreed to a one-year extension of their expired contract, the company and union confirmed .

The extension through Feb. 28, 2021, is “due to the unprecedented global business and human impacts of the covid-19 virus,” ATI spokeswoman Natalie Gillespie said.

“This gives us stability in very challenging times so we may focus on the safety of our employees and our continued business operations,” said Kimberly A. Fields, executive vice president of ATI’s Advanced Alloys & Solutions.

The announcement comes a little more than a week after the company announced it had paused contract talks, citing the pandemic and a lack of progress. The union had continued working under the contract, which expired Feb. 29.

The contract being extended dates to 2016 and was approved after a six-month lockout, the first in ATI’s history.

The contract covers more than 1,300 employees at nine locations, which in Pennsylvania includes Brackenridge, Latrobe, Natrona Heights, Vandergrift and Washington. Other locations are Lockport, N.Y., Louisville, Ohio; New Bedford, Mass.; and Waterbury, Conn. It also includes USW Local 7150 in Albany, Oregon.

The extension “allows us to remove the additional and unnecessary stress our ongoing negotiations with the USW has placed on our team,” Gillespie said. “Under this contract extension, existing pay, benefits and work rules remain unchanged.”

The union said the company withdrew its latest contract offer and replaced it with the extension.

“Obviously, we are not satisfied with what seems to be a temporary solution to the issue of negotiating fair new labor agreements, but at the same time, the security and protection our contracts provide are worth a lot more to our members and families,” the union said in a negotiations update.

The company will pay each covered employee a one-time $500 extension bonus “as a show of good faith to resume negotiations toward a new contract next year,” the company said in a release. The union said employees will get the bonus in their pay period ending April 17.

“It is impossible to predict what the future holds, but certainly, we can expect to bargain from a position of greater strength after the global covid-19 pandemic passes,” the union update says.

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