EuroWire May 2015

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May 2015 42
Steel
The US Steel workforce is feeling the
company’s pain, aggravated by the
inexpensive Chinese steel on o er worldwide
In an article led from Hong Kong and generated there and in
Pittsburgh and Beijing, the Wall Street Journal took notice of calls
in the USA and Europe for tari s on the excess products – sold
abroad – of China’s steel mills. Here are the main takeaways from
the WSJ piece (“Why Chinese Steel Exports Are Stirring Protests,”
15th March):
† “China’s massive steelmaking engine, determined to keep
humming as growth cools at home, is ooding the world
with exports, spurring steel producers around the globe to
seek government protection from falling prices.
† “From the European Union to Korea and India, China’s excess
metal supply is upending trade patterns and heating up turf
battles among local steelmakers.
† “In the US, the world’s second-biggest steel consumer, a
fresh wave of layo s is fuelling appeals for tari s. US steel
producers such as US Steel Corp and Nucor Corp are starting
to seek political support for trade action.”
So China’s steel mills have stayed in high gear even as its
economy is cooling. In her review of the WSJ piece, Lydia
DePillis, a labour and business reporter for the Washington
Post, suggested that it contains a lesson in how the global
economy works in sometimes unexpected ways.
The example she chose is the e ect the inexpensive Chinese
steel ooding the world is having on one group of American
workers – those employed by US Steel Corp of Pittsburgh.
(“US Steel Plants Are on a Layo Spree,” 16th March)
US Steel’s ‘pink-slip spree’
Imports of steel into the USA have been on the rise for years
now, going up 68 per cent in 2014 alone and contributing to
a long decline in industry employment. A surging dollar and
plunging energy prices have worsened the situation. Now,
wrote Ms DePillis, “With consumption slowing in China, real
downsizing has begun.”
The 13th-largest steel producer in the world, US Steel has been
on what the Washington Post reporter calls a pink-slip spree,
idling plants and cutting sta as part of an ”ongoing adjustment”
to accommodate for lower demand. Up to mid-March the
company had laid o workers in Alabama, Texas, Ohio, Indiana,
Minnesota and Illinois – cutting a few thousand from its
23,000-strong workforce in North America.
† In January, the steel giant announced it was closing its coke
production operations in Granite City, Illinois, entailing a
loss of 176 jobs. The largest business enterprise in the world
when it launched in 1901 also temporarily idled one of the
blast furnaces at Granite City.
† The company said as well that it would idle its pipe
manufacturing plant in Lorain, Ohio, and send home 614
workers – casualties, at least for an interval, of weak demand
from the oil industry.
† US Steel’s Keetac iron ore plant in Keewatin, Minnesota,
was set for an open-ended closedown as of 13th May, with
the layo of as many as 412 workers who mined the ore
burned in the blast furnaces of Northwest Indiana’s steel
mills. A company spokeswoman told the Minneapolis/
St Paul Business Journal (12 th March), “We can’t speculate on
the duration of the temporary idling.”
† While US Steel said it would continue to produce iron ore
pellets at its Minntac plant in Mountain Iron, Minnesota, a
planned expansion of the Keetac plant was put on hold.
† In its latest round of layo s in Northwest Indiana, US
Steel on 12th March let go 83 more workers at the Gary
Works. All had worked at the sprawling mill, the company’s
largest, for under six months. The layo s are permanent,
a spokeswoman said of the probationary hires. With
those cuts, US Steel had eliminated more than 780 jobs in
Northwest Indiana to date.
† An editorial (”Show More Spine to Fight Steel Dumping,”
15th March) in the Northwest Indiana Times noted that more
steel is produced in Indiana than anywhere else in the USA
– a distinction that the state has held for 34 straight years.
But over that period, nearly 50,000 steel jobs have
disappeared from Northwest Indiana.
In 2000 there were 26,700 steel jobs in the area, 39,900 fewer
than in 1979; as of 2014, there were only 17,900 steel jobs.
Through mid-March of 2015, another 1,000 steel jobs had
been shed.
Like the policy agenda of the American Iron and Steel
Institute, the Times editorial makes the case for laws that
strengthen tari enforcement and trade agreements that
recognise the needs of the home-grown industry.
Transatlantic Cable
Image: www.bigstockphoto.com Photographer Zsolt Ercsel