Disunited Steelworkers and the U.S. Steel Deal

Before Americans broke for the Memorial Day weekend, President Donald Trump announced that he would allow a proposed investment by Japan-based Nippon Steel into the struggling company U.S. Steel that had been blocked previously by the Biden administration to go forward.

As of writing, the details of what President Trump called a “partnership” between the U.S. government and Nippon Steel were unclear, with Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) suggesting the investment might require giving the U.S. government a “golden share” with veto power over certain national security–related decisions involving U.S. Steel.

There Is Always a Labor Angle

As one would expect with an old manufacturer with plants in forced-unionism states in the Rust Belt, this story has a labor angle. The national headquarters of the United Steelworkers (USW) union had endorsed the previous Biden administration policy preventing Nippon Steel from acquiring U.S. Steel, even if that policy threatened steelworkers’ jobs. In 2024, the Wall Street Journal reported:

If McCall and the union get their way, they will be left with a contentious employer. U.S. Steel Chief Executive David Burritt said in September that the company will likely close its oldest mill, near Pittsburgh, if the deal fails. The move would eliminate jobs for thousands of union steelworkers.

“They don’t have to sell,” said McCall, a 72-year-old former millwright, in an interview. “U.S. Steel is a solid, viable company. It can stand alone.”

The changes the Trump administration negotiated to the Nippon Steel takeover did not appear to satisfy McCall and USW brass. In a statement to the Journal after President Trump’s announcement, McCall declared, “Our concern remains that Nippon, a foreign corporation with a long and proven record of violating our trade laws, will further erode domestic steelmaking capacity and jeopardize thousands of good, union jobs.”

Not-So-Collective Bargaining

But for whom does McCall speak? He may be the titular representative of his entire union, but the union members—including local union officials—in the line of potential plant closures sang a different tune from their over-boss. Salena Zito reports:

USW Local 2227 President Jack Maskil, Vice President Jason Zugai, and safety chairman Gary Picketts, who have all clocked into their jobs at the Irvin Works mill for decades, said they were thrilled and relieved the deal would not just save their jobs but also the jobs of men and women in the surrounding communities who will now be able to work here for generations.

“We had faith in the president from the very beginning,” Zugai said from the West Mifflin plant. “I never doubted he would come through for us.”

So, if the local union members including local union leaders could see that U.S. Steel needed a rescue from wherever one could be found, why didn’t McCall? One answer might be the classic of collective bargaining gone wrong: defending union power at all costs. Back in 2024, the Journal reported:

Maintaining U.S. Steel as a stand-alone American company gives McCall leverage to draw on U.S. political and public support during contract negotiations. McCall would wield less influence over non-U.S. executives under a sale to Nippon Steel, said Robert Bruno, a labor-relations professor at the University of Illinois.

Bosses’ Power Plays

There is a lesson in the United Steelworkers’ national-local dispute. Advocacy by Big Labor may have little to do with what workers feel they can get from bargaining collectively at the company level. Since at least the 1990s, Big Labor’s national offices have committed to an Everything Leftist policy program, whether or not their members wanted to ride or die with the Sierra Club, Black Lives Matter, or UnidosUS and the rest of the left-wing “The Groups” infrastructure.

Cases are rarely as straightforwardly clear-cut as the USW national leadership fighting plant-level USW elected officers over whether or not Nippon Steel should be allowed to try to save U.S. Steel. The same inconsistency between workers’ needs—even the needs of workers who freely choose to participate in collective bargaining—and union officers’ power plays is a common feature of American organized labor. Those seeking to help workers, rather than union officers, must remain aware of that.