01) COURT SIDES WITH US STEEL
By Sam Hammond, Hamilton
Superior Court Justice Herman Wilton-Siegal has managed to preserve his consistency by giving US Steel everything they asked for once again. On February 29, the Pittsburgh-based corporation won a sweeping court decision in its claim for $2.2 billion of shady investment to be declared debt against its captured Canadian subsidiary, US Steel Canada.
This is why the USW members of Local 1005 in Hamilton, Ontario, call the Pittsburgh capitalists “US Steal”. In 2007, US Steel acquired the criminally bankrupted Stelco, with plants in Hamilton and nearby Nanticoke on Lake Erie. Stelco’s directors had reneged on their debt to suppliers and dismissed their shareholders under a phony and orchestrated “bankruptcy” claim. The shareholders and suppliers walked away with empty pockets; the unionized workers held fast for themselves and over 20,000 pensioners, fighting the bottom-feeding financiers to a draw; and Stelco was sold for a fraction of its real value. In the public part of a (mostly secret) deal with the Feds, US Steel promised to maintain jobs and production, invest hugely and look to expansion.
None of the conditions were met (as reported extensively in PV). Instead, the corporation engineered a year-long lockout, sold off part of the Hamilton operation, stopped producing steel in Hamilton, laid off workers, transferred its Canadian sales orders to its American plants, and claimed unsustainable losses in Canada.
To add insult to injury, this was called restructuring, part of which was to declare the pillaged Canadian operation a stand-alone company with billions in created debt owed to Pittsburgh.
The desired objective has been to plunder and pillage until bankruptcy can again be utilized, and then call all the manufactured debt loans and appoint Pittsburgh the favoured creditor. The US Steel can dispose of property, workers, pensions, government loans and promises in a grand reclamation of their initial purchase output, while walking away with the sales and their own money back. Behind they leave millions in unpaid municipal taxes, over 20,000 plundered pensions, loans and guarantees to the Ontario government, and an environmental disaster that will cost taxpayers billions to clean up. The company can have an industrial garage sale and dispose of plant, equipment and real-estate piecemeal. They can’t sell the workers, but they will settle for bankrupted pensions, impoverished families, broken promises and ruined lives - the human residue of plunder and pillage.
This could not be accomplished without the trusted services of Justice Herman Wilton-Siegel and the “Company Creditors Arrangement Act” CCAA. For over two decades, the honourable Justice (the Pittsburgh spelling is not a mistake) has consistently given the vulture capitalists and a US corporation everything they need to turn the southern Ontario steel industry into a debt-ridden corpse and then to feed off its remains. When viewing the plight of workers, pensioners and taxpayers in this debacle, words like plunder, inhumanity, pillage and robbery seem mild. How about treason?
“The judge’s decision has reinforced our motto that the CCAA is legalized theft…This is an insult to thousands of workers and pensioners who should be considered first and foremost in this process,” said Gary Howe, USW Local 1005 President, representing U.S. Steel Canada’s Hamilton employees.
“U.S. Steel controlled everything, took our work to the U.S., shut us down and tried to run us into the ground. And now they even get back the money they paid to buy us in the first place – it’s a disgrace,” said USW Local 8782 President Bill Ferguson, representing Nanticoke employees.
Right on! But isn’t capitalism itself a highly refined social instrument of legalized theft and exploitation? Doesn’t an entire class exploit and feed off the labour and creativity of another class? Time to consider socialism anyone?
The Steelworkers Union, quite correctly, will appeal the court decision and probably spend a long time in litigation. They deserve all the support that can be mustered, but after all folks, this is capitalism. The state is not neutral and the courts are instruments of the state. Fight at every level, for sure, but this might have to be won on the pavement.
Reporting on Stelco and US Steel for the last decade, we have ended many articles with “stay tuned, this is not over”. Well here we are again: stay tuned, this is not over. The Cities of Hamilton and Nanticoke are looking for litigation to force US Steel to pay their municipal taxes, the Ontario government is looking for a way to collect the $150 million it is owed, and the Union is looking at appeals and a struggle to protect pensioners and keep a Canadian steel industry alive. Large numbers protested in Hamilton in January, called out by the Steelworkers, indicating the direction this struggle has to take. If the Trudeau government wants to invest in stimulating the economy to protect and expand jobs, rebuilding the Canadian steel industry is a good start. But not for Pittsburgh and US Steel.
The key is nationalization, public ownership and control, including resources. The Canadian need for steel has never been satisfied by domestic production. The market is here and waiting, but it cannot be utilized without ripping up NAFTA, CETA and the TPP. The moment for a campaign for public ownership and control is ripe; spring is coming and the time for street political campaigning is here.
(The above article is from the March 16-31, 2016, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)