Nippon Steel Corp.’s vice president Takahiro Mori is set for a U.S. visit that will include a meeting next week with workers representing the three major local unions that run United States Steel Corp.’s iconic plants in the Pittsburgh area.
The move indicates that the Japanese company is making a push to persuade rank-and-file union members that its $14.1 billion bid to take over U.S. Steel will be good for the workers’ long-term prospects. During his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump said he’d block the deal, which remains before regulators.
United Steelworkers Local 2227 vice president Jason Zugai said in an interview that he received a personal email from Mori and agreed to sit down with the executive next week at a yet-to-be-determined time and will bring along multiple union members from the Edgar Thomson Plant, Clairton Plant and Irvin Plant. Zugai said he is hoping United Steelworkers international president David McCall, who has been steadfast in his opposition since the deal was announced in December, will also sit down with Mori and reconsider his stance.
The news comes as both companies await a decision about the pending transaction from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS. Earlier this year, the security panel granted Nippon Steel permission to refile its plans for the purchase. The potential takeover became an election flash point, particularly in swing-state Pennsylvania, where both U.S. Steel and the USW are based. Investors, analysts and the broader industry are eager for a decision now that the election has passed.
Nippon Steel didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. U.S. Steel declined to comment.
In a statement, McCall said he wasn’t aware of local union members meeting with Mori. He repeated a position that the national union is seeking a written contract from Nippon Steel guaranteeing capital investments. He said the current terms of the deal would come “at the expense of national defense” and critical supply chains.
In the interview, Zugai said he expects to tell Mori that he and his fellow steelworkers want their labor contract extended: “Extend it another four years, keep the same pay raises. That would go a long way to get this deal to the finish line.”
“I’m doing whatever I have to do to get this deal done,” Zugai said.
Visit Stops
Zugai also said Mori will attend this weekend’s Pittsburgh Steelers football game against the Baltimore Ravens.
Mori is also likely to stop in New York and Washington during his visit, according to a person familiar with the plans who asked not to be named because the information is private. The trip has been in the works for several weeks, but the company was waiting for the U.S. election, held on Nov. 5, to pass, the person said.
McCall, the union head, said in an interview last month that he was making a final push ahead of the election to stress to his members why union leadership opposes the Japanese takeover, a move that came as rank-and-file members openly challenged his position. A group of union members in October spoke to a Fox News morning show to publicly say they supported Nippon Steel’s acquisition of the storied U.S. company.
A day before the election, Zugai said he and many other steelworkers stood beside Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania to show their support for the candidate. Zugai said he talked afterwards to Trump for about 3 minutes about the deal and told him many of the steelworkers support for it.
It’s unclear if a decision to approve or kill the deal will ever reach Trump’s desk, as the CFIUS decision time line has been pushed to December, while the Biden administration is still in office.
