Steelworkers Angry at Bush Over Tariffs
The Associated Press

Friday 05 December 2003

PITTSBURGH - Calvin Croftcheck was faxing handwritten messages addressed to President Bush from union workers, their families and retirees when a worker at the U.S. Steel-owned Clairton Coke Works delivered the bad news: tariffs on foreign steel were being lifted.

"It was all for naught," said Croftcheck, 46. "It was all very discouraging, very disheartening."

Steel workers and union leaders said Bush's decision Thursday to lift tariffs would undermine efforts to reshape the industry.

The unions also said a proposed monitoring program to guard against a glut of foreign steel would not be enough for companies in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia to stay competitive.

The monitoring program was a consolation from Bush, who lifted the tariffs under threat of a trade war from Europe. The tariffs had been scheduled to remain in place until March 2005.

"Our union will now work very hard to make sure George W. Bush joins the ranks of the unemployed next year," said Mark Glyptis, president of the 3,000-member Independent Steelworkers Union at West Virginia's bankrupt Weirton Steel Corp.

In a statement, Bush said the tariff had done its job in helping protect the industry while it made changes.

Weirton's chief executive officer, Leonard Wise, said that, while the company would have preferred the tariffs continue into 2005, lifting them now won't be devastating because the world economic climate has improved since last year.

"This will ease any negative effects of losing the tariffs," Wise said. "We thank President Bush for providing the tariffs for the past 20 months. They have helped our industry."

Wilbur Ross, founder and chairman of Cleveland-based International Steel Group, said he didn't see much of a threat to the U.S. steel industry.

"Since the imports are not much of a problem right now anyway, the question is how to deal with things later on," Ross said. "We're pretty comfortable now they have the right tools to deal with it."

The Bush decision was good news for Emil Kapluvka, 46, a dock worker at the Port of Cleveland, who was busy Thursday unloading coiled steel from Holland.

"We'd rather be loading U.S. steel than unloading foreign steel, but we've got to take what we can get," Kapluvka said. "It may mean bringing in more work for us, for truck drivers too, and for some jobs at various factories."

Facing stiff competition from foreign companies, which have cheaper labor costs and more modern equipment, the U.S. steelmaking business has been undergoing painful reforms, as several companies go through bankruptcy or consolidate with others.

The industry complains that some foreign companies "dump" their steel at below cost on the U.S. market.

Union officials said lifting the tariffs would be especially tough on retired steel workers who have already lost health care benefits as a result of recent bankruptcies. The success of the tariffs were supposed to direct some of the industry's profits to defray insurance costs for retirees.

Workers say they're nervous about how the industry will manage now.

"Does this mean that somewhere along (Lake Michigan), another plant is going to suffer, is going to shut down? We don't know. What we do know is that if we had had the 36 months, all the plans that were put into place would have beared fruit," said Chuck Fordyce, 47, a steel worker at U.S. Steel in Gary, Ind.

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