It would be foolish to think all Butler AK Steel employees are feeling upbeat about the new six-year labor contract approved last week. They would have preferred a pact without concessions.

However, the new contract ratified on Friday represents a realistic give-and-take by both sides that has put to rest the uneasiness that had existed about the prospects of reaching a quick, amicable settlement.

Both sides deserve praise from the community for their dedication toward achieving a quick settlement. A prolonged contract dispute and work stopped would have had serious adverse effects on the local economy, since the bargaining unit covers 1,400 local workers.

Few outside the bargaining room imagined that an agreement would be possible in just a month after negotiations commenced — considering the ongoing contract stalemate that has resulted in 2,700 employees being locked out of AK Steel's Middletown Works in Ohio.

That lockout, under way since March 1, had caused some local workers and others in the community to fear the worst.

The current five-year contract here doesn't expire until Sept. 30, but the ability to avoid a last-minute bargaining showdown has allowed attention to remain focused on what should be the primary goals — ensuring the efficiency and profitablity of the local steel operation.

The new agreement is good for the workers, plant and community. The best contract is one that neither side can claim as total victory, and the new pact just approved fits that description.

It can be concluded that the winding-down of the current contract came at a good time for the local plant, which makes electrical steel, stainless steel and other specialty steels. Both stainless and electrical steel have been in big demand on the world market, especially in places like China and Iraq, where infrastructures either are undergoing modern transformations or massive rebuilding efforts.

Hurricane Katrina also increased the domestic need for the kind of steel products produced here. For example, electrical steel is a key component in transformers; many transformers along the Gulf Coast were damaged or destroyed as a result of last year's Katrina onslaught.

While the local workers will be sharing health care costs for the first time — a trend already well entrenched across the nation — and accepting changes to current pension plans and job classifications, they will have a positive incentive for working hard to ensure the utmost in profitability and other forms of success for the local operation. The new contract provides for profit sharing based on the profits of the Butler Works, not the entire company's profit picture.

"This is the first contract that we feel AK has recognized that the Butler Works is the most profitable plant, and it feels good to get that," said Jim Gallagher, president of Local 3303, United Auto Workers of America, which represents the local plant workers.

"We kept our vacation and paid holidays, as well as our profit-sharing plan," Gallagher said. "Nobody else (other AK bargaining units) has got as much."

Meanwhile, most people in the area were feeling upbeat when they read a comment from Alan McCoy, AK Steel spokesman, that the company is committed to growing the plant's electrical and stainless steel businesses amid the robust market that currently exists.

"We will continue to look . . . for ways to enhance (those) products for customers," McCoy said.

About the quick contract settlement, McCoy was on target in remarking that "it's always good to get these things done ahead of time without the inconsistencies of last-minute negotiations."

It's good when people strive to agree, instead of injecting unreasonable demands that cause the negotiating parties to drift further apart, rather than to redouble their commitment to understanding the other side's needs and concerns.

The three-month strike at the Penreco plant in Fairview Township, due in large part to a stalemate over health care benefits, coupled with what has been happening at the AK Steel Middletown Works, gave the county a troubling picture of what a breakdown in negotiations at the local steel plant could bring.

To a lesser degree, the teacher-contract stalemate and subsequent strike at the Allegheny-Clarion Valley School District, which was caused by lack of agreement on wages and health care benefits, had area residents further reflecting on what the future might hold when the AK talks got under way.

Thanks to the right attitudes over the past month at the negotiating table, however, fears about a similar situation affecting local AK Steel workers have been put to rest.

Granted, AK workers would have preferrred something better — and it's likely the company would have liked to be facing a national and international economic picture that would have allowed it to give more — but the contract is good nonetheless.

The contract is the foundation on which the local plant can remain a pillar of stability and strength not only for AK Steel but for Butler County in general.