They told us the deal would save American steel. The first goddamn thing they did at the bargaining table was ask the workers to pay for their own health insurance.
Nippon Steel buys U.S. Steel. Trump’s administration signs off. Eleven billion dollars committed to keep the plants running. That was the pitch — the one every family in Gary and the Mon Valley and Granite City who’d already watched thirty thousand union jobs disappear in eight years wanted to believe.
So what did the first offer look like? Eighteen percent over five years and a four-thousand-dollar bonus that won’t cover a year of the copays they want to put on health coverage that used to be fully paid. Fully paid. That was the deal. That was what these workers earned through decades of negotiating and showing up when the furnace hit two thousand degrees.
And don’t get me started on Granite City. Twelve hundred people went back to work this year after the plant sat dead since 2023. Families drowning got a lifeline — except under the deal Nippon cut with the feds, that plant can still close in 2027. Three fucking years. That’s what “saving a town” looks like when the spreadsheet says shutter it.
Eight hundred BP workers locked out since March. Thirty thousand union steel jobs down to twenty thousand. And the company wants a “quick signing and smooth transition.” Of course they do. Quick means nobody reads the bill before they sign their name on it.
Roxanne Brown says she’s ready to bargain. She’d better be ready to goddamn fight. Because the same bastards who bought the mill with patriotic promises are now asking the workers who built it to pay for their own health care. Take the flag off, pour the speech down the drain, and tell the truth: you didn’t save American steel. You bought it at a discount and started picking the pockets of the people who made it worth buying.
Source story: the source story.