Steel Mill closes

A local steel mill and the adjoining scrap buyer announce to workers it was closing its doors one day and filed for bankruptcy the next day.
376 workers got walking papers and many local companies are left with unpaid unsecure loans.
The company has been pretty tight lipped on the reason for the closure.
Some are claiming union obligations as many of the workers of the 40 year old mill reach retirement.
Others are blaming import tariffs on scrap steel. (And here I thought we exported scrap steel)

Well there goes our steady supply of slag for driveways.
It is uncertain how this will effect the local price of scrap as it will have to be trucked out of town now.
 
I don?t want my comments to take this thread the wrong way, so I am trying to be cautious in my wording. After many decades of globalize trade, and government deficits, the chickens are coming home to roost. Inflation and ever mounting debt is starting to slow economic growth. Primary industry always feels the pinch long before mainstream markets or general population. There just aren?t enough Bandaids left in the box to slap one on every sector of the economy. Just take a look at the tattered bandaids stuck on the agricultural and automotive sectors over the last 30 years. They haven?t really helped pull these drowning sectors out of the water, merely kept them afloat. Seems we are headed into a recession. And periods of recession, in recent history of the last 100 years, have been brought to a end by war. How?s that for a grim pessimistic opinion for early in the morning.
 

My investment advisor calls every now and then with advise to get into some higher growth investments. I keep telling him thanks but I think that I have been doing OK, and that I have very strong faith in the ability of a few people to bring all this crashing down around us.
 
This will go poof. How'd you like Sonny Purdue's comments from this week? Sounded like a kick in the teeth to the family farm.
 
Things sure have changed in my 56 years. Lots of manufacturing sectors have been on a down hill slope. They get little improvements but overall down. Not an economist so I cant give an educated guess as to reason. Other sectors seem to be taking up the slack. Just observations.
 
Union put themselves out of work, hope this is a good lesson for them which they will remember on their next job. The price of their raw material, steel scrap is at or near an all time low, the Govenor blames tariffs which prop up the prices of the finished goods? I know the Govenor is an incompetent but that is ridiculous, the company management says that's they defaulted on senior notes to banks, the company is owned by a Connecticut investment fund according to the story.
 
Many years ago a steel mill filed for bankruptcy and somehow they raided the workers pension fund. Workers got nothing.

Same thing happened to Ann Page in Terre Haute.

If you know any workers, better tell them about their pension may be gone too.

Raiding pension fund should be a crime.
 
LAA,
I remember 40 years ago I was lucky to get rid of tin at recyclers for $5-10 a ton. Then before the olymics in China, $200 a ton.
Prices are based on my failing memory.
 
Union just got a new contract a while back. 4-3-3 % raise over next 3 years.
In hindsight the writing may have been on the wall for a while.
The place looks like a dump.
Lots of locals think it has to do with pension funds like Geo-TH talked about.

It surprised me when John Bel brought up tariffs with the price of local scrap.
But he talks out both sides of his mouth anyway.

I wonder if the new Nucor plant (just up the river) had anything to do with this.
 
Surely you are mistaken, John. The import tariffs are breathing new life into all those outdated steel mills whose owners sucked dry for decades before selling them to the Russians.
 
I think that would have been better phrased if you had said "eventually " unions put themselves out of work. I say that because I remember hearing horror stories about men being killed on a picket line just because they wanted to be treated like men with families that needed more than companies were willing to give. I know a lot of benefits we enjoy today are state and federal laws and I'm thankful for them, but they had to have roots. There's a lot of reasons heavy manufacturing has flocked out of this country and unions are not the sole reason and I also know that's not what you said. Would I join a union today? No, just because I can't see paying dues to an organizations that don't have very big muscles to flex anymore, although that might not be true of trade unions. I work in a nonunion shop now and I'm treated better now than I've ever been. Just a point of view from someone who's been there,done that.
 
Pension Funds both private and public have way over promised what they will be able to actually deliver,if the company or gov't entity is on the hook they have no choice but to
resort to some type of bankruptcy expect to see more in the future as more Baby Boomers retire with what they think are great retirement benefits.
 
I would not give the federal or state governments much credit, their only interest in the citizens prosperity is how much they can steal through taxation and appropriation, no significant societal or governmental change has ever taken effect which was not predicated on money. Henry Ford recognized that it was folly to produce a car that his own workers could not afford to purchase, he had the brilliant idea of paying above a subsistence wage so that the large working class could participate in the economy and the result was that most every other industry soon followed suit. It is claimed that he ordered a few ungrateful heads to be broken along the way but his contribution to the average Americans standard of living far overshadows any of that.
 
> Where these men killed by the unions for asking that they be treated like men?

You don't have to look very hard:

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Hall_disaster">1913 Calumet Massacre</a>

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Hunger_March">Ford Massacre</a>

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Matewan">Matewan Massacre</a>
 
?In America the big get bigger and the small go out. I don?t think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability.?

With little apparent concern for how deeply his message would cut in an audience filled with small dairy farmers, Perdue noted that the economy of scale and other factors made it ?very difficult ? to survive milking 40, 50, or 60 or even 100 cows.?

So that?s the message from this administration. If you?re small, get out. You can?t make it anyway. Don?t expect support. Don?t expect to be valued for your care and personal dedication. This is Darwinian thinking at its most brutal, with small, struggling farmers selected for extinction by a system that sees no place for them.
 
thanks for reporting John, I'm sure this thread won't end up being a union vs non-union argument, or the economy is slowing down because of u no who. Sure too bad the company closed and all those workers are out of a job. gobble
 
Might be as simple as they didn't keep up with modern times.When I worked at the concrete plant another plant in the area went bankrupt many factors but they hadn't modernized their equipment over the years,customer service at the place had gone to downhill,poor management overall,we got the best drivers since we we were able to pay more all added up to them becoming unprofitable while we prospered.Businesses don't run themselves.
 
Every farmer seems to believe consolidation and economy of scale are truly great things when he is the one expanding and they are truly horrible things when he is the one going out of business.
 
Owners getting old decide to take the money and run, no kids who want to take it over. High cost of everything except scrap. Can't give steel scrap away around here. Nephew was logging and now with tariffs no one outside us will buy the wood. One local company has 2.5 million board feet of lumber sitting in China and they won't pay for it because of tariffs.
 
We, (USA) are about as far from a recession as we have ever been. 2020, that could all change,.....FAST.
 
As a Christian,Human,I always seem to hurt when fellow humans are suddenly meet with their source of income curtailed. It has a catastrophic effect that shatters the very fabric of what most of us consider to be unjust and unfair.
Who and what is to blame? I have no idea.

In 1971,I was embarking on my future path of survival with no specific goals. A gentleman(Immigrant from France)was on shift in the main compressor station as my mentor.

Mr. August LeHenaff for what ever the reason shared with me,my future survival in the work force would be decided by the continuing life long necessity of education, that I must make up my mind to acquire over the rest of my life.

This new Immigrant from France was 100% correct.


Bob....
 
Great advice that applies more today than ever in the fast changing World of today.The good part is in today's World education is available at a person's finger tips thru their computer if a person is so inclined.
 
Except for the City/Country that Ford founded in South America to grow and process rubber for auto tires. The whole city is abandoned and lies in ruin now. Documented on the TV show "Mysteries of the Abandoned"
Loren
 
The easy way to explain it all is to blame the unions, which of course is passing the buck. First off, there are a LOT of people out of work in North America ...... some are union workers, some non-union. Economics does not discriminate. There are well-run businesses in both kinds of shops, same thing for the dead-end outfits. One thing for sure, union guys and non-union guys both want a new car in their driveway every few years and a pool in the back yard. The only way it happens is to have high wages and when that happens, things move away from town and go somewhere else. And remember, most benefits that non-union workers receive these days was historically achieved on the backs of the union movement. And I realize the union movement has its warts too, but they provided all of us with a decent living no matter how you look at what has happened.
 
Hate hearing about all those folks losing their jobs. My guess is poor management / or corporate raiders. Sounds like both especially considering the condition of the grounds. Bankruptcy was declared trying to get out of the fines they are facing by having more than 50 employees and not giving them notice they were closing. Seems like it's supposed to be 60 days. Don't think it will work though.

If it were me I would be very concerned about the company stealing the pension fund. It's common. Personally I think anyone in management that does that ought to be shot.
 
You must be talking about your country when you talk about how many people are out of work,unemployment is at a 50 year low here the Great Old USA.About every business in my area
has help wanted signs up,local landscaper told me he hires anyone that comes in the door looking for a job.The Right TO Work States that have low union membership are for the most part the best off financially.I never wanted or owned a pool or new car even though I could have afforded both I was much wiser with my $$$$ which now is one of the main reasons my wife and I have a great financially secure retirement all done without ever joining a union.I remember back in the 1970's when all the 'Black Taggers' from union rust belt areas headed South to find a job down here in non union Right to Work country.
 
Recently in the local news they said that job openings and unemployment are both up in Minnesota, the problem is the unemployed are not qualified for the job openings, many of which are in the medical field. Many of the unemployed are just not trainable to fill the openings, and there isn't much demand for ditch diggers (with a shovel) anymore!
 
Bruce I did not hear anything about this but the simple facts are farming ahs been consolidating for centuries. It is a simple fact.

I wonder how everyone is thinking the economy is heading for a recession???? You will never hear it in the main stream media but US unemployment is at lows not seen since right after WWII. Just about every business I know of is looking for skilled workers.
 
Russ, totally. All throughout reading this chain I kept wondering, "so this is how all that winning?" works. High employment % is pretty much guaranteed if it takes 2 or 3 jobs to feed ones family. Have you read "Democracy in Chains?" gm
 
The often stated claim that unions blazed the trail for higher wages and benefits for all is pure propaganda which those that understand capitalism reguarly refute. The supply of workers who possess the skills or talent which is needed to produce goods and services which are currently in high demand determine wages and benefits in the real world, always has and always will.
 
LAA ..... yes, that's your story and you're sticking to it I suspect. But the other side of the argument could refute your claim just as easily. After all, they're just printed words from someone's thoughts on a topic. Historically, actual events on the union movements worldwide would say otherwise. Read some factual and documented history on the original union movement in the early 1800's in Britain and I think your argument would fall flat on its face. But remember, that's only my opinion and it's as good or bad as yours is.
 
Mark and sportster, Thank you for the validation. I knew there were links, but didn't know where. The stories I heard were from men who were there. DP
 
TF ..... I read through my reply again and I can't find any place where I referred to the unemployment (or employment) rate. Perhaps you could show me. Meanwhile, comments/replies on a post can only refer to generalities, not specific locations like where you live or your own financial situation. Even in the worst of times, there were always some that did well. My reference to the new cars and swimming pools was just used as an example to make a point, I wasn't implying that everyone does that ............... but a good number of people did (and still do) and it has hurt the economy.
 
Pinkertons? How far back in history did you have to go?

I remember members of the meat packing union shooting up supervisors houses and threatening employees at the plant door while "recruiting" when I worked at IBP in the 1980s. 10 years earlier the unions set bombs off that were attached to the power poles to cut off power to the plant.


I don't worry about ancient history stuff.
 
You don't have to go back to far to find stories of unions committing acts of violence - you can get first hand accounts from people that saw it.


In January 1999, members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union toppled two transmission line towers at Thompson Pass, Alaska, depriving 400,000 Alaskans of power in the dead of winter. Also protesting the hiring of nonunion electrical workers, the unionists shot guns and assaulted the strikebreakers. Just two months ago, members of the Sanitation Workers Union in New York City sabotaged snow removal efforts following a blizzard at the end of December, crippling the city and resulting in several deaths, due to the inability of ambulances to reach critical patients in time.

According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, there have been over 9,000 documented cases of union violence since 1975, and of these, only 1,963 arrests and 258 convictions have been made; due to the collective political power of unions, only 3 percent of union thugs have been convicted of their crimes. The institute also reports that local law enforcement authorities are frequently overwhelmed by the number of participants in union violence, who sometimes lash out by blaming the company targeted by union militants for trying to continue its legal operation in the face of illegal violence.
 
Mr, Horse. I am a diesel mechanic who borrowed money to pay my tuition so I could learn a trade at a university. I then went out and got real on the job training and have been able to make a good living. I repair farm tractors mostly. Show me where My pay or education was somehow taken off the back of any union? Never seen many union farms or dealerships in the Midwest. Al
 
Well actually Al, I sort of clarified that (I think) in another reply in this thread. For any of us to expect someone's thoughts on a matter to relate exactly and specifically to another individual's situation is unrealistic. How could anyone expect that? Remember though that since you are not working for free, is it even remotely possible that the union movement in some way has not influenced that? Remember, it's been going on for over 200 years. That'd be like asking how my tiny little bit of driving my car and heating my home or burning my garbage could possibly relate in any way to global warming or the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
 
Al .... well in Britain (where the movement pretty much started), everything associated with the industrial revolution was involved. The link below is interesting, I have browsed through it but wouldn't claim to have read all of it, but it is an interesting story (with a lot of different and conflicting opinions).
Untitled URL Link
 
I think you are both wrong, look around you, how many of the unemployed people would you want working in the health care system? And no, not all the unemployed people would fail a drug test!
 
(quoted from post at 06:42:58 10/05/19) ?In America the big get bigger and the small go out. I don?t think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability.?

With little apparent concern for how deeply his message would cut in an audience filled with small dairy farmers, Perdue noted that the economy of scale and other factors made it ?very difficult ? to survive milking 40, 50, or 60 or even 100 cows.?

So that?s the message from this administration. If you?re small, get out. You can?t make it anyway. Don?t expect support. Don?t expect to be valued for your care and personal dedication. This is Darwinian thinking at its most brutal, with small, struggling farmers selected for extinction by a system that sees no place for them.

OK if someone starts a plant making something and they don't make enough to keep open is the government supposed to bail them out? No! Of course not! Then why should the government support the farmers? You don't feed the world. Heck you don't even feed 1/2 the world. No one in the world ever supported anyone for failing. Farming has changed. The day of the small family farm is dead. Farming is a business. Businesses compete with each other and the ones that lose? Fail! The system didn't set you up for failure. You did that on your own by not taking risks and growing so you could compete. Not trying to be mean. Just honest.

Rick
 
(reply to post at 03:56:36 10/05/19)






Ag Sec Perdue's comments taken out of context sounded worse than they were.He had a pretty detailed analysis of how smaller farms have been able to continue by changing. His optimism about the trade issues is as expected.
 
Most high paying jobs are in upper management. Has nothing to do with union protecting them.
 
I feel you are wrong Rick , it is because of all the
interference that the government has done with
agricultural since the end of WW2 that has been the
thing that has hurt the Ag sector most. Programs
put in place to increase productivity on farms has
done nothing but drive farm gate prices lower. Then
Agricultural subsidies to make up for short falls in
profits, just kept farmers producing more and more,
the whole while becoming more and more
dependent on government subsidies and programs
to remain profitable. The only thing wrong with Ag is
farm gate priced haven?t kept pace with inflation. Its
not so much a matter of farmers being ineffective.
No one can buy inputs at 2019 prices and expect to
show a profit while receiving 1975 prices for the
products they sell. Has kept the food prices lower
for the consumer, and there are far more consumer
votes than farm votes
 
It is,they passed laws with out teeth, back when the White family bought Minneapolis Moline,stole the pensions funds and MM still went broke ! They been raiding them ever since.
 
(quoted from post at 18:38:32 10/05/19) I feel you are wrong Rick , it is because of all the
interference that the government has done with
agricultural since the end of WW2 that has been the
thing that has hurt the Ag sector most. Programs
put in place to increase productivity on farms has
done nothing but drive farm gate prices lower. Then
Agricultural subsidies to make up for short falls in
profits, just kept farmers producing more and more,
the whole while becoming more and more
dependent on government subsidies and programs
to remain profitable. The only thing wrong with Ag is
farm gate priced haven?t kept pace with inflation. Its
not so much a matter of farmers being ineffective.
No one can buy inputs at 2019 prices and expect to
show a profit while receiving 1975 prices for the
products they sell. Has kept the food prices lower
for the consumer, and there are far more consumer
votes than farm votes

I disagree Bruce. If a guy farming today doesn't understand that over production is killing them and KEEPS over producing then it's on them. Now is when they should be cutting back. You think Ford keeps building cars when they ain't selling or do they idle lines and whole plants? Heck a few years ago corn hit record prices. Did the farmer keep production steady or did they do JUST LIKE THEY ALWAYS DO and up production. According the the USDA the following spring in the US 33,000,000 acres were taken out of CRP and put back into production. Just who held a gun to the farmers head and made him do that? Or was that sheer GREED? The government didn't do that.

Now I not saying that in the past the government didn't support over production. They did. But the government isn't buying up the surplus like they use to. So that's been gone for some time. Heck why should a person have to pay for groceries twice? One at the store and every year at tax time?

Remember back when corn hit 5 bucks in the 90's? I was driving between KS and west MN 1-3 times a month. Often while in west MN I'd go to Fargo. Areas that you never saw corn? Were planted in corn the next spring. The wheat fields of KS were in corn too. Come the next fall at harvest corn was 1.95. My BIL lacked enough storage and had 7,000 bushels he had to sell. Man was he mad. Lot of farmers were mad. But no one told them to plant more then either.

Look at the banks. Government said they were too big to fail. Bailed em out. People are still angry about that. If that were to happen again?

As far as farmers? Farmers in the US have been complaining about prices ever sense the US government cut supports. So to the average Joe citizen who doesn't know any farmers thinks all they do is whine. And guess what? When it's in the news? They show farms with millions of dollars of equipment. Nice house. Nearly new shiny pickup. And the the farmer with all this stuff complaining about not making enough. It's sad but the news media plays farmers like a cheap violin! You ain't winning over the city folks.

But a farm is a business. Country living is a lifestyle. If you treat farming like a lifestyle it's going to bite you.

What bad about this is I saw the difference between farm and city life back in 71 and 72 when we moved from the suburbs in NJ (most of our neighbors worked in NYC or Newark) to rural MN. Here farmers and their families did without stuff cause it wasn't needed. In NJ if you wore hand me downs you were going to be picked on. Out here hand me downs were normal. In NJ almost everyone I knew had 21" color TV's in 71. Out here 13" black and white with rabbit ears was the norm. The farm family didn't know what it was missing. Today everyone knows. And they want want everything. Even farmers. So subsistence living is no longer an option. That means the farm has got to make money like a business so that the farmer and the family can live like the rest of the country. Got because I said so. But because that's what today's farmer wants.

Rick
 
> You don't have to go back to far to find stories of unions committing acts of violence - you can get first hand accounts from people that saw it.

You asked for specifics, and I gave them to you. I guess you didn't like the answer.

So what's your point? That violent or destructive acts by some union members justifies the cold-blooded murder of others? It doesn't. Nor does violence against strikers justify violence by strikers.
 
> Show me where My pay or education was somehow taken off the back of any union?

Nothing in the economy happens in a vacuum. How is it that as an independent shop you're able to compete with with big dealerships? Well, for one thing their overhead is higher. And part of the reason their overhead is high is that they have to compete in the labor market for skilled workers, and if workers are unhappy with their pay and benefits they'll go elsewhere. It's hard to deny that many of the benefits offered by employers (health care, retirement plans) were driven by union demands, then picked up by non-union employers in order to find and keep employees.

I've never had a union job, and every job I've had since leaving college have been salaried. But I fully understand that much of the generous salaries and benefits I've received over the years were the indirect result of union bargaining.
 
If farmers want to blame someone or something for low prices they need to blame themselves and each other,no one has flooded the market with agricultural goods except for farmers.
Real simple if Nike shoes,Ford Motor company or anyone else manufactured more of their products every year than there was demand and then flooded the market with these products
the price they get for their products would go way down below production cost.Same with farming farmers have flooded the market with ag products there isn't a demand for at a profitable price but the difference is the Gov't has stepped in with money to keep them in business instead of them suffering the economic consequences of their
over production. But this isn't going to continue forever,gov't is running short of cash,taxpayers are getting fed up with it etc.As the old saying goes the Bell will Toll
but to blame some obscure Market Boggy Man for low prices is not being realistic. Low prices are a result of farmers over production just that simple.Believing the Big Ag and
Gov't lie about Feeding the World and farmers having an unlimited market for their production 'out there' and such is just talk and those that believed such foolishness will pay the
price.
 
(quoted from post at 11:14:47 10/05/19) IMHO unions created the middle class and as they disappear so will the middle class! Then who will buy the new cars and houses?

I could not have said it better myself.
 

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