Allegheny Ludlum Corp. is moving quickly to absorb the J&L Specialty Steel operations it acquired last month. The Allegheny Technologies Inc. division plans to offer buyouts to encourage 650 hourly workers to retire by 2006, and will eliminate 190 production and maintenance and 115 corporate staff positions from the former J&L organisation. The new labour contract agreed to by ATI and the United Steelworkers of America established a transition-assistance program. ATI will take a USD 25-million charge against its Q2 2004 earnings to fund the programme, then use it to fund the early-retirement incentives over the next two years. ATI chairman, president, and CEO Pat Hassey said: “The transformation of our stainless steel business is well under way. When fully implemented, we project that Allegheny Ludlum will be capable of annual shipments in excess of 700,000 tons of flat-rolled specialty metals with approximately 2650 production and maintenance employees. For comparison, Allegheny Ludlum shipped 478,000 tons of these metals in 2003 with over 3000 production and maintenance employees.”