Have foot, will shoot it.
Certainly, this must be the unified mantra of the Biden administration and the United Steelworkers (USW) union regarding the announced $14.1 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel Corp. by Nippon Steel Corp.
Not only do observers say the administration’s national security review of the takeover might extend into 2025, the union has filed a grievance that also could drag out any approval.
The only question is if the sentences for the metaphorical convictions the government and union are seeking will be served concurrently or consecutively, so to speak.
As the Post-Gazette reports it:
“Scrutiny by the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment [CFIUS] in the U.S. is in its early stages. … The inter-agency panel led by the Treasury Department has the power to approve, block or amend the deal on national security grounds, or send it to President Joe Biden for a decision.
“In a statement Friday to the Post-Gazette, Treasury spokeswoman Megan Apper said: ‘CFIUS is committed to taking all necessary actions within its authority to safeguard U.S. national security. Consistent with law and practice, CFIUS does not publicly comment on transactions that it may or may not be reviewing.’”
Further reports the P-G:
“While the precise timing of the review remains unclear, people familiar with the process said they expected it to take about a year or longer. That is within the comparable range for reviews of this scale, as the process can lurch ahead and pause amid legal wrangling, according to some of the people, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter.”
But it is an election year. And having not just fallen off the turnip truck (or having been born at night but not last night), we are forced to wonder if part of this “standard” time frame is to appease the Democrats’ organized labor constituency.
And we would be remiss not to openly ponder if the administration and the USW are working in concert. To a suicide pact, we hope not.
As the P-G further reports, the USW and five union locals representing U.S. Steel workers have filed a grievance against the company. It claims the deal was “sprung on the union.”
Per the P-G:
“On Thursday, the union sent a letter to U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt specifying the provisions of the basic labor agreement the union believes have been violated during this review process and asking to begin dispute resolution.
“’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,’ the union wrote in a note to members. ‘[U.S. Steel] 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.”
U.S. Steel says it complied with all contractual obligations. And, do remember, the USW favored a takeover by a U.S.-based company.
But all this also raises the question of whom the USW thinks runs U.S. Steel – it or the company.
Make no mistake, the Nippon Steel subsumption of U.S. Steel deserves review, including that for national security concerns and also supply chain issues.
But given this nation’s ally status with Japan, and given Nippon’s early indications of significant investments in a new asset that hopefully will serve to expand market share, what’s the real issue here?
Thus, it’s darn-near incomprehensible to imagine that Nippon’s aim is to somehow dismantle a company for which it will pay billions – with likely plans to invest billions more — and even have the acquisition maintain its U.S. Steel name.
This proposed deal must be vetted as expeditiously as possible and sans the machinations of any political undertones and/or overtones.
The USW, too, has a right to its say, per its interpretation of its contract, and even its day in court, if that be the case, to press its concerns and secure any Nippon promises in writing.
But the Political-Labor Complex remains too often the producer of deleterious consequences that disserve sound public policy and the general public weal.
Any such suicide-pact outcome surely would be the greater threat to national security concerns and critical supply chain issues.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
