"Steel workers at U.S. Pipe and Foundry Co. in Bessemer will return to work Monday after ratifying a new contract today to end aweek-old strike, the union local president said", according to The Birmingham News.

The article reports,"Members of Local 2140 of the United Steelworkers union approved the four-year contract this morning, after twice rejecting similar proposals.

Officials with Mueller Water Products, which owns U.S. Pipe, recently had sent a message to striking union workers that the company would run the two Bessemer plants either with or without them, said Ronnie Woods, president of Local 2140.

"That is the main reason the membership voted to accept the contract," Woods said. The final vote was 67-44, and 250 members of the union were on strike, he said.

An effort to immediately reach a spokesman for Atlanta-based Mueller Water Products was unsuccessful late Saturday afternoon.

"We were forced into something we really didn't want," Woods said. "We did the best we could with what we had to work from. We did not want to lose our jobs."