Steel Is Booming, But Workers Are Fuming

Donald Trump signs new steel tariffs in March surrounded by grateful steelworkers. Nobody in a suit is anywhere near. But when it comes time to dole out the windfall profits, Trump is having lunch on Wall Street and there are no visits to steel mills on his agenda. Funny how that works.Michael Reynolds/Pool/CNP via ZUMA

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The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump’s steel tariffs have caused the domestic steel industry to boom:

The steel industry was already in a period of renewal when Trump slapped 25 percent tariffs on steel imports….The tariffs sent the price of steel surging more than 33 percent. “We have a strong U.S. exposure; clearly we are a net beneficiary of the trade actions,” Aditya Mittal, chief financial officer of ArcelorMittal, said in August, according to Bloomberg News.

Trump has repeatedly cited the gains as one of the biggest upsides of his trade policy. After he visited the Granite City plant, video circulated of a steelworker being brought to tears by news of the plant’s expansion. “Trump has supercharged [the sector] with broad-based tariffs,” said Phil Gibbs, a steel industry analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets.

That’s great! I guess us naysayers were all full of—

When President Trump imposed tariffs on steel imports in June, Richard Lattanzi thought of dozens of his fellow steelworkers who have for years put off badly needed repairs of their cars and homes. “There was a lot of excitement here; there were a lot of us saying, ‘It’s about time someone is looking out for us,’ ” said Lattanzi, the mayor of this town of 7,000 and a safety inspector at the U.S. Steel plant in nearby West Mifflin.

….Four months later, Lattanzi is less optimistic. Production at U.S. Steel’s facilities have ramped up, and the company announced this summer that, thanks in part to the tariffs, its profits will surge. But in interviews in recent weeks, Lattanzi and other steelworkers said they’re no longer confident they’ll take part in the tariff bounty.

….In its latest offer, U.S. Steel said it would give workers an immediate raise of 4 percent, followed by 3 percent annual raises later on. By the usual standards, that would be a good deal. But at the same time, the company said it is wrestling with soaring health-care costs in the long run….and that it needs to start asking workers to absorb some of those — namely by paying $145 per month for health care.

….But to the union, it was an upsetting plan. It would reduce the overall wage increase to just about 1.7 percent over nine years.

ArcelorMittal’s last contract with US Steel workers was ratified in 2016. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, family health premiums have increased about $60 per month for large firms since then. For some reason, though, ArcelorMittal wants workers to start paying $145 per month. That’s about a thousand dollars per year more than their actual increase in costs. At the same time, they’re offering a raise of 4 percent, which comes to about 1.5 percent when you adjust for inflation. At a guess, that comes to about a thousand dollars per year. In other words, no net increase at all. But there’s more!

ArcelorMittal is also demanded sweeping concessions, including wage givebacks and cuts to vacation pay, as well as the elimination of profit-sharing bonuses for newer workers. Out-of-pocket health care costs will increase by up to $9,300 over the three years of the contract.

Well, who knows? Maybe that’s just union propaganda. But even if you account for that, it sure sounds as if steelworkers will at best come out even under the new contract proposal, but will probably come out worse. And that’s in the wake of a three-year period of no wage hikes.

In other words, somebody is getting rich thanks to the domestic steel boom caused by Trump’s tariffs. But as usual under Trump’s Republican policies, it sure doesn’t seem to be the workers themselves.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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