The United Steelworkers of America (USW) should be embarrassed.
While it claims all manner of bad faith by Nippon Steel in the latter’s attempt to win union support for its proposed multibillion-dollar takeover of U.S. Steel, email exchanges between the union and Nippon more than suggest it’s the USW that’s engaging in bad faith.
As The Washington Post reported last week, despite repeated assurances from Nippon that its promise to honor the existing USW contract and invest billions in upgrades are genuine, the union wants the deal scuttled.
Simply put, it’s playing juvenile games.
And in a separate statement, released after Nippon went public with nearly a year’s worth of email exchanges, the USW continued to cite multiple red herrings:
“The bottom line about this merger is that it jeopardizes national security and critical supply chains. We have already provided our members with Nippon’s proposals, all of which show that Nippon Steel has always sought to hide behind its shell company and couch its purported commitments about job security and capital investments in so many conditions as to make their promises worthless. Now USS and Nippon are politicizing the situation in a last-ditch attempt to save the deal.”
Never mind that Nippon has myriad, long-successful U.S. facilities, there is no compelling evidence to support “national security” or “supply chain” concerns.
And never mind that the union’s still, supposedly preferred buyer, Cleveland Cliffs, would face bona fide monopoly scrutiny and would scuttle some local U.S. Steel operations.
The bottom line remains that should the Nippon-U.S. Steel deal not be consummated – either by the USW’s antics or those of government overseers (whose decision now likely won’t come until December) or both – we’ll take U.S. Steel at its word that it does not have the kind of money that Nippon is promising to keep local and other operations viable and will drop Pittsburgh as its headquarters.
The USW appears to be more interested in vainly attempting to prove that it has some power-projection relevance as an ignorant (in the classic sense) bully than representing its members honestly and effectively.
Cutting off one’s nose to spite the face, whether it be the USW or the federal government, is not flattering at all. And should the Nippon acquisition of U.S. Steel be scuttled by the union or hacks seeking to secure political favor (a public policy that disserves the public), they will be solely responsible for the jobs and facilities losses that are sure to follow.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
