Overcome with emotion, 76-year-old retired Steelworker Ray Powell stood his ground Wednesday, blocking a line of six trucks loaded with pipe attempting to exit the Wheatland Tube plant.

Despite a constant blare of warnings from state police to step back, it took a few words from Dominic Vadala, the union's chief negotiator, to get Powell to walk away.

Seventy-five to 100 members of United Steelworkers Local 1660 joined the West Middlesex man at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the plant's exit in protest of six flatbed trucks headed for Strimbu Co. in Brookfield.

Strikers spat at the windows of departing trucks, yelled obscenities and taunted the drivers. "Can't you find a real job?" some shouted.

"I've been a union member all my life and this isn't right what they're doing," said Powell, who spoke after the trucks left. "I came down to support these boys."

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