Steel Mills

US Steel Continues to Shrink its Workforce

September 17, 2015

Once one of the largest corporate giants in the United States (if not the world), United States Steel (USS) continues to shrink its workforce as demand for its products shrink. SMU has learned that an unknown number of white collar workers have been advised that they will be losing their jobs.

USS Spokesperson Courtney Boone advised Steel Market Update this afternoon, “We staff our organization based upon our operational and business needs. We have not commented on numbers but will say that these adjustments impacted salaried employees.”

US Steel, under the leadership of Mario Longhi, has been working for many months to reduce the company’s overhead. As part of a program nicknamed “The Carnegie Way” (after Andrew Carnegie who created Carnegie Steel Company which when sold to JP Morgan in 1901 became U.S. Steel) the company has been cutting costs in order to survive.

In Augus,t US Steel announced that it would close the hot end and most of the rolling operations (except for one coating line) at their Fairfield Works in Birmingham, Alabama. The move is expected to impact up to 1,100 workers.

With negotiations between US Steel and the United Steelworkers union (USW) having failed to come to an agreement on September 1, 2015, the company has been working under the terms of the old contract. With ArcelorMittal having walked away from the negotiating table, many in the industry expect that over time US Steel will as well. The company is pushing for concessions from workers who have not seen a strike or lockout since the mid 1980’s.

The company also put their Canadian operations into bankruptcy over a year ago (see Mediation article in tonight’s issue) and have closed or reduced operations at a number of their pipe and tube operations due to weakness in the energy sector.