Rust Belt Despair: West Virginia Workers Forced to Find New Jobs as Plant Closes from Lack of TariffsJohn Binder 26 Apr 2024
Hundreds of West Virginia workers have been thrown back into job hunting in a labor market with slashed wages as a plant in Weirton closed last week. The plant closure comes as the federal government refused to impose tariffs on cheap imported tin.
“It’s a tough situation. We’re used to working locally and making a decent wage. Everything [else] around here is a 40 percent pay cut,” Dan Strapazzon, 41 years old, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about finding a new job.
Strapazzon, along with about 900 others, were told in February they would be laid off at Weirton’s Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. tin plant.
The reason for the closure, executives said, is because the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) refused to allow the Commerce Department to impose tariffs on unfairly subsidized and cheap imported tin products from Canada, China, Germany, and South Korea.
“… the ITC shockingly ruled against [the] imposition of tariffs, keeping the uneven playing field in place and making it impossible for us to viably produce tinplate,” Cleveland-Cliffs executives said in a statement about the plant closure.
Last week, many of the laid-off Cleveland-Cliffs workers headed to a job fair in the hopes of finding nearby work with similar wages and benefits. Some of the workers said they may get out of the industry altogether because of its instability.
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https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/04/26/rust-belt-despair-west-virginia-workers-forced-find-new-jobs-plant-closes-lack-tariffs/
