The men of U.S. Steel Corp.'s Clairton Works want to get paid to strip.

No, they aren't re-enacting "The Full Monty." The company mandates they don safety gear when they get to work, then take it off and take a shower when they leave.

Now it's up to a federal judge to decide if they should get paid for the time they spend not fully clad.

U.S. District Judge Donnetta Ambrose has taken the first step in the case and dismissed the United Steelworkers union as a plaintiff. She also ruled that George Andrako, John McCormick and Mark Bruce -- the workers who were named in the suit -- and others who are similarly employed at the steel mill have standing to take on the steel company for possibly violating federal law.

Judge Ambrose ruled that the employees have standing to bring a Fair Labor Standards Act claim against the company to see if they should be compensated for the time it takes to put on their safety gear at the beginning of the shift and then take it off and shower at the end.

U.S. Steel's spokesman John Armstrong said the company would not comment on the case.

It's not like the men just have to put on a polyester shirt with the company logo. According to the complaint, the workers have to wear flame retardant coveralls, insulated full-length underwear and socks, flame retardant wristlets and gloves, safety goggles, respirators, ear plugs, snoods (protective head coverings), boots, face shields and helmets.

Even though they have to swipe a card when they walk in and out of the gate at either end of their shifts, the company is currently paying them for the time they spend at their work stations, not the time spent suiting up for the work and walking to their work station.

The argument put forth by the workers is that the action of getting dressed is integral to the work they are doing.

Gerald Dickey, a spokesman for the United Steelworkers, said that in coke plants, street clothes are kept in a different room from work clothes so that coke dust is contained to the plant. He said it takes about 20 minutes on either end of the shift to change, and that showering would add to that.

"There's cancer warning signs all over the place," he said. "For years people never lived to retire, they just died of cancer."