There was a mass protest held Saturday January 29, 2011 in Ontario by the USW 1005 members. The protest was held for the 9,000 local people facing the loss of their small annual pension increases they get under a deal between the company and the United Steelworkers.

Several thousand U.S. Steel employees, retirees and union members from across Ontario came and paraded for about 20 minutes, shouting their “disapproval of U.S. Steel for locking out 900 Hamilton workers to back its demands for pension plan changes and the Stephen Harper government for allowing the firm into Canada in the first place,” according to the Hamilton Spectator.

The article reported that “Saturday's protest was organized by the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) to draw attention to the plight of the Hamilton workers and what labour leaders say is a historic attack on worker pensions. In the local dispute, the company wants an end to pension indexing for 9,000 current retirees and for the existing defined benefit pension plan to be closed to new employees. They would be enrolled in a defined contribution savings plan with the ultimate pension dependent on the performance of investment markets over time...

Rally organizers had predicted as many as 6,000 would attend. Estimates after the fact ranged from 8,000 to more than 10,000, but there was no official count…

Union banners and flags showed the local crowd was swelled by members of the Canadian Auto Workers, Service Employees International Union, McMaster University students, Communication Energy and Paperworkers Union, and public-sector unions including the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Speaker after speaker denounced the company's pension demands as evidence of corporate greed and the Harper government's failure to protect workers.”