U.S. Steel’s Man Valley Works is a string of steelmaking plants along the Monongahela River near Pittsburgh. Put together, the plants are the largest single source of air pollution in the Pittsburgh region. The fate of Mon Valley Works and its 3,000 workers remains uncertain.
Last week, the Biden administration blocked the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel. WESA’s Oliver Morrison has been covering the potential sale and its local impacts and joins The Allegheny Front’s Reid Frazier to talk about it.
LISTEN to their conversation
Reid Frazier: Oliver, welcome to The Allegheny Front.
Oliver Morrison: Hello.
Reid Frazier: So, walk us through the sale again. Why did Nippon want to buy U.S. Steel, and what reasons did the Biden administration give for blocking the sale?
Oliver Morrison: So about a year ago, Nippon offered about $15 billion for the company, and that was a lot more than the company was worth on the stock market at the time. But the deal quickly drew opposition. The main group was from the United Steelworkers Union.
A number of national politicians quickly followed the union’s lead, but many of those politicians were Democrats, including Biden, who are worried about the national security implications. But it also included the man who was then Biden’s election opponent, Donald Trump.
Reid Frazier: The United Steelworkers Union came out against his sale. What was their reasoning? What reasons did they give?
Oliver Morrison: Well, they didn’t like that they weren’t included in the original negotiations. And they felt like many of the promises that Nippon was making publicly about how they would support their jobs wouldn’t be legally enforceable – for example, Nippon’s promise to invest billions of dollars in U.S. steel facilities, particularly here in southwestern Pennsylvania, and even offered to pay every existing worker a $5,000 bonus if the deal went through.
But I spoke to Congressman Chris Deluzio, who represents this region, and he opposes the deal. And he says Nippon only promised all the support after significant pressure.
Chris Deluzio: We shouldn’t forget the initial proposal that came out of this deal had nothing to protect steelworker jobs, and Western Pennsylvania had nothing to protect the headquarters jobs in Pittsburgh, had nothing to ensure there [would] be any kind of investment.
Reid Frazier: Okay, so that was Congressman Chris Deluzio. He was against the deal, but some in the region wanted the sale to go through. Who were they and who are they, and what have they said about it?
Oliver Morrison: A number of state and local Republican politicians and some local business groups supported the deal because they thought it was the best chance to save jobs. U.S. Steel CEO said that the company would likely be forced to close down its local operations if the deal fell through.
The company held a couple of big rallies, which included hundreds of workers that supported the deal. Although that’s only a small percentage of its workforce, it was clear that many workers didn’t agree with union leadership. Kevin Prickett is a manager at one of the company’s plants, the Clairton Coke works, and he supported the deal.
Kevin Prickett: You know, it’s just the huge influx of cash that, quite frankly, U.S. Steel needs to try to go ahead and get our facilities modernized so they can still be competitive.
Oliver Morrison: Don Furko worked for U.S. Steel for 24 years, and he was happy that Biden blocked the deal.
Don Furko: We need jobs. The company needs workers. And it would also be a symbiotic relationship to come up with some sort of solution if U.S. Steel thinks that the legacy operations aren’t viable anymore.
Oliver Morrison: So Furko hopes the company will work with the union to preserve the company’s more than 100-year presence in the region. This is a company that was started by Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan.
Reid Frazier: So lots of history in the region. U.S. Steel also happens to be the region’s single largest source of several types of air pollutants and has paid millions of dollars for air pollution violations over the years. You’ve spoken with environmental groups about the potential sale. What have they been saying?
Oliver Morrison: I spoke with Patrick Campbell of the Group Against Smog and Pollution. He said his group was neutral and who owns the company. He just wants the plants to clean up.
Patrick Campbell: What matters to us is that…it cleans up its act in the Mon Valley, that actually the facility itself is maintained adequately and properly, [and] is updated to reflect best emissions controls.
Oliver Morrison: He also wants the plan to clean up its carbon emissions. U.S. Steel is one of the biggest sources of CO2 emissions in the region.
Reid Frazier: You spoke with some workers for U.S. Steel about this topic. What were they saying about the effect of the potential sale on local environmental conditions?
Oliver Morrison: Yeah. Remember Kevin Prickett, the manager at Clairton Coke Works? That’s the biggest Coke plant in the U.S. He said the sale would be good for local environmental quality because Nippon would be able to spend money to upgrade equipment.
Kevin Prickett: In my estimation, U.S. Steel just hasn’t done a very good job as far as trying to go ahead and modernize. I think for many, many years, U.S. Steel, you know, just kind of kept their head in in the dirt.
Oliver Morrison: Prickett said Nippon would upgrade equipment that U.S. Steel hasn’t spent the money to replace. Furko, who was against the sale, said U.S. Steel is still planning to replace some aging equipment at Clairton already and is hopeful now that the plan has been squelched that the company will continue to make these kind of investments on its own.
Don Furko: It’s replacing the equipment that’s been in place since 1982. So it’s about 40-year-old equipment that’s being replaced.
Reid Frazier: Okay. So varying opinions about the impact of the potential sale on the environment. What’s next with the potential sale of U.S. steel?
Oliver Morrison: Well, U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel have filed two federal lawsuits, and they’re hoping that those lawsuits are going to force the federal government to go back and reconsider allowing the deal to go through.
Reid Frazier: Well, Oliver, thank you so much for joining us and talking to us about this.
Oliver Morrison: All right. Thank you.
