U.S. Steel to shutter Canadian operations

[CHIMO]

TORONTO — Even through deeply troubled times like the Great Depression and a stint in bankruptcy protection, the mighty Stelco operation continued to run, its steel mills fuelling the Southern Ontario city of Hamilton.

On Tuesday, the global recession and a bruising slump in the automotive industry forced the operation's new owners to put it in mothballs.

United States Steel Corp. said Tuesday that it is indefinitely halting its entire Canadian steel production, putting about 1,500 people out of work at the former Stelco plants in Hamilton and Nanticoke, Ont.

Most of the operations and all of the steel production at the two plants, picked up by the Pittsburgh-based steel giant when it bought struggling Stelco less than 18 months ago, will be shut down over the next few weeks, leaving just a few hundred people on the job. It's the first time either of the plants has been shut.

http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090303.wstelcostaff0309/BNStory/Business/home

Well, I guess it is one less possible irritant in the buy america bit.

[CHIMO]

1. STELCO- WORKER

The city that relied on steel to keep its economy alive is in shock today.

Yesterday, officials announced that fifteen hundred people at the former Stelco plants in Hamilton and Nanticoke will be soon out of work. That devastating news comes just months after more than six-hundred employees were laid off. The company, U.S Steel, says the plants will close temporarily, until the economy improves.

Employees at the two former Stelco plants have been been receiving lay-off notices since December. But the news about the plants' closure still came as a nasty surprise.

Glen Green was the recipient of one of those lay-off notices. We reached him in Caledonia, Ontario.
http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/asithappens/20090304-aih-1.wmv
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