STEUBENVILLE - Companywide there are 388 dues-paying members of the United Steelworkers union on the job at Severstal Wheeling's plants up and down the Ohio River.
That figure was provided by USW District 1 official Santo Santoro Thursday in response to a comment from Severstal North America that the company still has 1,000 employees in its Severstal Wheeling unit.
"We have a total of 388, counting all the plants in Ohio along the river strictly from Severstal Wheeling including Yorkville and Martins Ferry and in West Virginia Beech Bottom and the coke plant (at Follansbee)," Santoro said. "That's out of 2,600."
Severstal North America had made the statement when asked about living up to terms of its enterprise zone tax abatement deal from 2004 with the state of Ohio regarding construction of the electric arc furnace at Mingo Junction.
The agreement said the mill would continue to employ 948 workers. The abatement is moot because Ohio no longer collects personal property tax, but the county tax incentive review council renewed the abatement during a meeting in March because the agreement would run though 2014. The company stated Thursday it still has 1,000 employees in the Mingo Junction plant, though because of economic conditions, they're on indefinite layoff.
Severstal idled the furnaces and other facilities at its Steubenville South plant at Mingo Junction about 13 months ago and has run its Martins Ferry finishing line for a brief period over the summer to complete an order. The coke plant at Follansbee continues to operate at a reduced level of production, and employment.
The company has said several times during the past year that it would restart units only if demand indicated the production would be needed. It has idled its mill at Warren, Ohio, and continues to operate units at Dearborn, Mich., and Sparrows Point, Md.
Asked if the company has any idea when the local mills might restart, Santoro said, "They don't know. They have no idea when they are going to start or if they are going to start. I wish somebody would make a strong decision and say, OK, the opening date is a particular date," he said.
"If we have 1,000 people working in the valley, they forgot to tell us," Santoro concluded.
(Giannamore can be contacted at pgiannamore@heraldstaronline.com.)
