BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Beating the drums of American
nationalism, the U.S. steel bosses have launched a reactionary
campaign against steel imports. A series of full-page ads have
appeared in capitalist dailies over the past several weeks in
which major U.S. steel companies are promoting their "Stand Up
for Steel/Stand Up for America" drive. Joining in this effort
is the officialdom of the United Steelworkers of America
(USWA).
This campaign, slated to run from Labor Day until the November elections, is a deadly trap for working people. The steel bosses claim this crusade is needed to save "American steel jobs." But they couldn't care less about jobs - in any country. What this campaign is actually designed to do is save American steel bosses' profits, while pitting working people internationally against each other. It will simply embolden the steel bosses to step up their demands for more concessions from the union, all in the name of making "our" industry more competitive. While railing against imports, the steel barons are preparing to step up their attacks on our right to a job, wages, and social benefits.
At a September 30 news conference held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., top executives from Bethlehem Steel, USX Corp., LTV, Weirton Steel Corp., National Steel, and Geneva Steel announced they had filed a complaint with the U.S. Commerce Department and International Trade Commission against the "dumping" of steel in the U.S. market at what they claim are unfair prices by steel producers in Japan, Russia, and Brazil.
"The U.S. steel industry is just the front line of what will be a growing number of U.S. industries lining up to defend themselves against unfair foreign steel dumping, unless we take action quickly," claimed Paul Wilhelm, president of the U.S. Steel Group of the USX Corporation. In Canada, five steel producers also announced they were preparing antidumping cases against imports of hot- and cold-rolled steel against Russia, South Korea, Slovakia, and Romania.
"Our current trade laws did not anticipate the level of economic collapse that is taking place in many foreign countries today," stated USWA president George Becker in arguing in support of this pro-company campaign. "This is an extraordinary situation - and it deserves an extraordinary response from our government to keep a foreign economic crisis from becoming a crisis for the U.S. steel industry and other strategically important American industries."
Becker warned that 100,000 of the industry's 145,000 jobs could be lost if the Clinton administration fails to impose tariffs on imported steel. USWA officials have also taken the lead in organizing a series of rallies to promote this chauvinist campaign. This includes one scheduled at Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point plant on October 29, an October 24 event near the Great Lakes Steel mill outside of Detroit, and an October 22 event in Fairfield, Alabama.
At the Sparrows Point plant, workers are being encouraged to sign form letters of protest to be sent to local legislators. "I am a steelworker in need of help," states one such letter. "If not, I will be an extinct worker and so will the Steel Industry.... Do the right thing and support legislation to stop the dumping of foreign steel in the United States." In Canton, Ohio, one day after Timken Co. announced the layoff of 222 steelworkers, the vice president of the company, Robert Lapp, appeared for the first time ever on the speakers platform at the union hall at a Stand Up for Steel rally. Prior to this rally a Timken representative had never been in the union hall for official business.
It's worth remembering that in the 1980s, under the banner of an anti-imports campaign, the steel companies slashed hundreds of thousands of jobs and successfully implemented some of the steepest concessionary demands upon the Steelworkers union.
The Stand Up for Steel campaign is also being hailed by ultraright-wing politician Patrick Buchanan. In a September 29 nationally syndicated article entitled "An America First Coalition - To Save Steel," Buchanan writes, "Economic patriotism is now the first consideration in making trade policy of a majority of the people's House .... It is now time this bipartisan coalition moved off defense -battling International Monetary Fund bailouts and unfair trade deals - onto offense, writing an America First trade policy and imposing it on a weakened Clinton. The place to begin is with steel." This anti- imports drive occurs at a time of stiffer competition among steel companies for markets to sell their product and as deflationary conditions drive down the prices of raw materials and thus cut into the profit margins of the steel bosses. "In my 43 years working in the steel business, I've never seen the market turn so bad so fast," stated Carl Valdiserri, chairman of Dearborn's Rouge Steel Company.
Steel production worldwide has begun to stagnate as we enter the beginnings of a crisis of capitalist overproduction. World steel output is expected to decline by as much as 4 percent by year's end. Among the hardest hit have been Japanese manufacturers. In Japan, production was already scaled back by 15 percent in the first quarter and is forecast to be the lowest in 25 years by the end of the year. In fact, Nippon Steel Corp. of Tokyo, the world' biggest steel company, said its exports to the United States for the October-December period will likely fall 10 percent from year-ago totals as a result of shrinking markets. Despite these facts, the steel bosses are continuing to press their protectionist drive.
The steel bosses rail against steel imports as they step up their demands for more concessions from the union in an effort to become more competitive in the hopes of reversing their declining rate of profit. This means more downsizing to cut costs - eliminating and combining jobs, deteriorating working conditions, and attacks on union rights and safety on the job. Five steelworkers were killed in 1997 at the Great Lakes Steel mill. At Bethlehem's Sparrows Point plant six workers were injured - several of them severely - in an explosion at the plate mill depot in early September. This occurs as Bethlehem is in the process of cutting 1,400 jobs at its Sparrows Point site.
The employers, echoed by union officials, keep talking about "American jobs," "our company," "our steel," "our government." But we have no common interests with the employers. It's their companies, their profits, and their government - a bosses' government. At the same time, we share the same interests with working people in other countries - whether in Japan, Brazil, Russia, or anywhere else - in our common fight to win jobs for all.
Rather than signing on in support of this pro-company, anti- imports campaign, steelworkers need to take steps to strengthen and defend our union to be able to better withstand the accelerating attacks against us as the corporate giants seek to solve their profits crisis on our backs. Union activists need to put at the center of our work extending solidarity to steelworkers and other working people on the front lines of standing up to the bosses' attacks. This includes the steelworkers on strike against Kaiser Aluminum plants, Titan Tire in Iowa and Mississippi, and Magnetic Specialties Inc. in Marietta, Ohio, among others.
And to win jobs for all, the labor movement must champion a struggle to reduce the workweek from 40 to 30 hours with no cut in pay. That's the road to strengthening the working class, union and nonunion alike.
Brian Williams is a member of United Steelworkers of America Local 2609 in Sparrows Point, Maryland. Jay Ressler, a member of USWA Local 1299 at Great Lakes Steel, contributed to this article.