It takes a mixture of alcohol, dish soap and standard cleaner to remove the greasy, oily residue that forms over the windows of Roger’s Classic Cuts in Clairton, right across from U.S. Steel’s sprawling coke works.
Owner Roger Mount believes this slick substance comes from the plant, which spews a sulfuric odor that’s hard to miss down the city’s main drag.
Yet, Japanese manufacturer Nippon Steel’s failure to push through its acquisition of U.S. Steel came as devastating news to Mount, despite it possibly spelling the end of steelmaking — and associated environmental harm — in the Mon Valley.
That’s because steelworkers, especially ones seeking a quick hair cut after the night shift, are his clientele.
“I show up at 7 a.m., there’s anywhere from one to five people waiting here,” Mount said. “That U.S. Steel keeps me alive.”
Mount was not alone in his strong feelings Friday after President Joe Biden blocked Nippon Steel’s nearly $15 billion purchase of U.S. Steel on national security grounds.
Bob Mousseau was shocked to hear the news as he fit winter coat-clad customers for eyeglasses at A-Boss Opticians in Braddock, less than a mile from U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thompson Works.
“We were just starting to come back with more businesses and more traffic coming through,” Mousseau said.
Corrine Thompson of Braddock offered a differing view.
As a former employee of LTV Steel Works in Pittsburgh’s Hazelwood neighborhood, which closed in 2002, she feels U.S. Steel staying domestically owned is the company’s best bet to avoid a similar fate, she said.
“I do appreciate Biden blocking that, because it’s someone’s livelihood, and we need our own steel,” Thompson said. “We don’t need to be relying on other countries for our steel.”
The decision fell to Biden after the Treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States failed to reach a consensus on whether the deal would imperil trade enforcement, critical supply chains and other key concerns.
And, while the companies appear poised to sue the federal government over the decision, U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt’s warnings that production could be moved to non-union facilities in Arkansas without a sale loom large for communities that rely on the coke works and three other area plants for economic vitality.
Clairton, for one, gets around 30% of its tax revenue from its plant.
“If it went away, it would just destroy us,” said Clairton Mayor Richard Lattanzi.
Lattanzi met with United Steelworkers International President David McCall, the deal’s leading opponent, just a few weeks ago alongside Nippon executives.
After several days of negotiations between the union and Nippon, Lattanzi said McCall suddenly broke off talks — a perplexing outcome since, according to Lattanzi, upwards of 70% of rank-and-file workers support the deal.
That figure is consistent with estimates from other local politicians and front-line union leaders.
In a press conference Friday afternoon, McCall brushed off the rift between the union’s top brass and its members.
He called Nippon a “serial trade cheater” that would have threatened union jobs as well as national security.
Nippon, for its part, has seemingly pulled out all the stops to win over union and government support for the merger.
In recent weeks, it promised to maintain production capacity at facilities in six states, including Pennsylvania, and issue $5,000 bonuses to eligible employees if the deal succeeded.
The Japanese firm also had vowed to invest $2.7 billion in union-run facilities, including $1 billion for upgrades to the West Mifflin hot strip mill.
McCall appeared confident U.S. Steel will find the funds for much-needed upgrades to the region’s aging integrated steel making operation.
“It’s clear from US steel’s recent financial performance that it can easily remain a strong and resilient company,” he said.
Some environmental organizations were supportive of Biden’s decision, even as they remained unconvinced that U.S. Steel will take strides toward limiting cancer-causing emissions, like benzene and heavy metals.
Nippon’s scant talk of pollution mitigation wasn’t cutting it for Matt Mehalik, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Breathe Project.
“In some ways, this blocking of the deal is an opportunity to actually tackle what is needed head on,” Mehalik said.
Mehalik wants U.S. Steel to think big, and understand that environmental and business incentives are aligned such that major investments toward zero-carbon emission steelmaking will strengthen domestic industry.
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“Pollute and harm people,” he said, is no longer a winning strategy.
Yong Kwon, a senior campaign advisor with the Sierra Club, said Biden’s action averted another 20 to 25-years of coke making, the process of heating coal at extreme temperatures for use as fuel in blast furnaces.
The Mon Valley Works has hope beyond the failed merger, according to Kwon, but U.S. Steel must summon the will to bring its operations up to modern standards.
“There are no physical barriers to U.S. Steel doing the right thing,” Kwon said. “We feel the tech and the money is available, they just need a credible plan to execute it.”