Members of the United Steelworkers (USW) went to the bargaining table with U.S. Steel in 2018 seeking a fair contract that recognized our hard work in steering the company back to profitability.
The company, true to form, just demanded additional sacrifices. As negotiations wore on, U.S. Steel tried to divide workers and bully the union into a bad deal.
But we stood together, came within hours of striking over the company’s unfair labor practices, and ultimately won the good agreement we earned.
The takeaways from that experience resonate powerfully today. The union has our backs, while management seizes any opportunity to line its pockets and throw us under the bus.
Like so many USW members in the Mon Valley and across the country, we vehemently oppose U.S. Steel’s plan to sell out to Japanese-owned Nippon Steel.
U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt says the deal would be good for workers. He even squandered millions on a PR blitz to try to dupe us.
But because he’s shown no concern for us or our families in the past, there’s no reason to think he has our well-being in mind now.
A year after floating this sale, in fact, U.S. Steel and Nippon continue to offer little but hollow words about the future of our jobs at the Mon Valley Works.
We’ve done our due diligence and know the deal stinks. It would give Nippon free rein to gut union plants, cut jobs and shift production to low-cost non-union facilities in the South once the USW’s contract expires in 2026.
When we rallied opposition to the sale, Burritt pulled out his usual bag of tricks. He stooped to fearmongering — such as threatening to abandon the Mon Valley and eliminate jobs — to divide the work force and try to bully the union into a bad deal.
Sadly, a vocal minority of union members succumbed to the scare tactics. But they don’t speak for the rest of us.
We cannot allow Nippon to exploit their concerns to push through a deal that we know is bad for union members.
The truth is, U.S. Steel is a profitable, stand-alone company with a bright future. It’s so valuable, in fact, that multiple other suitors stepped forward last year.
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We have many other reasons for opposing the sale.
Nippon, for its part, provided confusing, vague and conflicting statements about plans for the Mon Valley Works, leading us to conclude it has no intention to keep those plants running long-term.
And Nippon showed just how little it thinks of the union work force when it tried to buy our support for the deal with paltry bonuses, as if we’d trade our job security — our very futures — for a few thousand bucks. The bribery scheme revealed once again how low Nippon will sink to pad profits.
Nippon repeatedly dumped steel in U.S. markets over the years, putting our jobs, economy and national security at risk. Just last month, the Commerce Department ratcheted up duties on Nippon for trade cheating in 2022 and 2023.
Make no mistake, the takeover of U.S. Steel would enable Nippon to exploit America’s steel industry from the inside as well. That’s one of the key reasons why elected officials from both parties, including President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump, oppose the sale.
Like thousands of our co-workers, we have invested our whole lives in U.S. Steel and the Mon Valley.
We want the Mon Valley Works and the company’s other plants to continue operating for generations to come.
But corporate arm-twisting, smarmy payoffs and empty promises are not a path forward. To sustain our jobs, we need to stay strong, focus on U.S. Steel’s strengths, and leverage the union solidarity that built this company in the first place.
William Farrier is president of USW Local 1557, Jim Johnston is contract coordinator for USW Local 1219 and Dave Morgan is grievance chair for USW Local 2227. The three locals jointly represent thousands of workers at the Mon Valley Works.