Granite City steel mill expects to lay off 600 workers, company says
United States Steel Corp., the owner of the steel mill in Granite City, said Tuesday up to 600 workers face layoffs as the company has “indefinitely” idled the mill’s primary operations.
These 600 layoffs include 400 workers currently laid off since a blast furnace at the mill was “temporarily” idled in September, a company spokeswoman said.
The plant, known as the Granite City Works, has been the economic focal point for Granite City for generations.
“U. S. Steel has indefinitely idled Granite City’s primary operations and will meet customer demand by leveraging the Company’s active iron and steelmaking facilities,” company spokesperson Amanda Malkowski said in an email Tuesday.
While the company expects 600 people to be laid off, layoff notices were sent to 1,000 workers in Granite City, Malkowski said.
The layoff notices are sent as a requirement of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or “WARN,” Act.
“Out of an abundance of caution, we issued WARN notices to any employee who may potentially be impacted. We anticipate that approximately 60% of employees who receive WARN notices will be impacted,” Malkowski said.
“This action was taken in order to help ensure melt capacity is balanced with our order book,” she said in a statement. “Accordingly, the Company has sent the required notices to employees who potentially may be affected. We thank our employees for their contributions and will keep them informed throughout this process.”
The Granite City plant will continue to handle finishing work, Malkowski said.
United Steelworkers Local 1899 President Dan Simmons told KSDK-Channel 5 that workers received an email from Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Tuesday morning regarding the layoffs.
Simmons told St. Louis Public Radio that the plant had about 900 employees prior to Tuesday’s announcement so about 300 employees could remain after the 600 layoffs are completed.
Area lawmakers criticized U.S. Steel for its actions in Granite City.
“As U.S. Steel works to close up their union-represented shop in Granite City and move operations to a so-called “right-to-work” state, it’s clear that the company’s executives are more concerned with lining their own pockets than they are with the livelihoods of the workers who have built their company for generations,” U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, said in a news release.
State Sen. Erica Harriss, R-Glen Carbon, said in a statement, “U.S. Steel is turning its back on our workers, our community, and our state. I stand with the hard-working people of our district and will do everything I can to support our families in the days and months ahead.”
“Granite City employees and their families have provided loyal, skilled labor to the steel industry for decades, and U.S. Steel is pulling the rug out from under them. U.S. Steel should be doing everything it can to keep the Granite City steel mill operating at capacity, and I don’t see the company making that effort,” state Rep. Amy Elik, R-Alton, said in a news release.
State Rep. Jay Hoffman, D-Swansea, released a statement that called U.S. Steel’s move a “ shortsighted decision to abandon hundreds of highly-skilled workers.”
“It’s unfortunate that workers and their families are being cast aside this way,” State Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, said in a news release.
In September, Simmons rejected U.S. Steel’s reasoning that a blast furnace in Granite City had to be “temporarily” idled because of the then-ongoing United Auto Workers’ strike.
“Our order book here was solid,” he told KSDK-Channel 5 at the time.
Last year, Granite City steel workers were concerned about jobs being lost when U.S. Steel announced a plan to sell two blast furnaces to SunCoke Energy Inc., a raw materials handling company.
