Steelworkers union demands meeting with U.S. Steel CEO
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The United Steelworkers union is continuing to detail its concerns over the proposed $14.9 billion acquisition of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel by Nippon Steel announced last month.
In a letter to members obtained by our partners at The Times of Northwest Indiana, the union said it is demanding a meeting with U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt over alleged contract violations regarding the sale.
USW District 7 Director Mike Millsap and International President David McCall said the union also sent a letter to Burritt outlining the alleged violations and seeking to resolve the dispute.
“The letter in particular addresses our right to bid clause, which is one of several protections that we negotiated to safeguard steelworker jobs and benefits in the event of the proposed sale,” Millsap and McCall wrote. “These violations include refusing to provide the union with any information about the sale process that its board of directors started in August, including simple things such as important deadlines or timetables. USS also failed to provide the USW with the information about the bids it received, to which we are also entitled under our BLAs, even as it entered into a contract to merge with Nippon’s Houston-based holding company. It did all this while ignoring our attempts to negotiate a reasonable confidentiality agreement.”
The union said it used its right-to-bid option to give its support to Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., which had made an offer to acquire U.S. Steel for $7.3 billion, a move that U.S. Steel rejected.
“Part of our letter to Burritt is an extensive request for all of the information that the board of directors considered in choosing to pass over Cleveland-Cliffs’ bid and instead take the Nippon offer,” Millsap and McCall wrote. “Our BLA not only entitles us to this information but also spells out the factors the board must take into account, which means USS may have further violated our contract in how it selected Nippon.”
Earlier this month, Millsap and McCall told union members that they met with officials from both companies in late December but did not receive answers to their questions about the future.
U.S. Steel founded the city of Gary in Indiana with its Gary Works operation that at one time employed some 30,000 people. The steelmaker also operates the Midwest Plant in Portage.