Big Steel

Though Big Steel has waged an aggressive fight over the imported steel it says stands at the core of its current woes, the situation is much more complex than it appears on its face. And the steel spat could easily end up in this country as a referendum on free trade, industry analysts and other economics experts say."Is there a problem in the steel industry right now? Certainly," said steel analyst Charles A. Bradford, head of Bradford Research in New York City. "Is foreign steel a part of it?

Unionized steel workers at Bethlehem Steel Corp. and the U.S. Steel Division of USX Corp. are being asked to forsake the high raises they traditionally get in return for better pension benefits, according to a tentative contract proposal obtained by The Sun.The proposed five-year deal would cover 10,000 Bethlehem workers, including about 3,800 at the company's Sparrows Point Division in Baltimore, and roughly 15,000 U.S. Steel workers. All are members of the United Steelworkers of America.

Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point Division has seen production fall and could face layoffs if the flood of cheap imported steel isn't stemmed, company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Curtis H. Barnette said yesterday."

The days when ocean liners, tankers and ships for the Navy's fleets were built in Baltimore died out some years ago.Down on Curtis Bay, though, the Coast Guard Yard has plugged along quietly.Like survivors of another industry -- Big Steel -- that lost out to overseas competitors, the yard found safety in its niche, thinking small.Yesterday the yard was the scene of an old-fashioned boat launching complete with band, white doves and a smashed champagne bottle, all to celebrate the first of a new class of buoy tender that will be built there over the next three years.

For 25 years, Larry Burks showed up for his job at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point plant stringing electric cable and wiring. His boss told him what to do, and his opinion wasn't welcomed.But now Mr. Burks sits on a joint labor management committee, and supervisors listen to how he thinks the plant should be run. And he's privy to what was once a highly guarded secret: monthly detailed reports on Sparrows Point's performance -- cash flow, return on net assets, even the amount and type of steel produced for each customer.

New leadership. That's what the stock market is seeking in this convoluted, volatile year.It just may come from the strangest places.Environmental services and big steel, two stock groups that have been heartbreakers to faithful investors in the past, may be ready to help provide the necessary boost.Their reasonable stock prices and improving business prospects are gaining attention:* Environmental services firms, their earnings pummeled by the weak environmental cleanup policies of the Bush and Clinton administrations, should benefit from the economic revival.

WASHINGTON -- Now that Big Steel has foreign imports on the run with successful trade litigation, it doesn't want the government to mess it up by making a deal with other countries."

Joe McGinniss wrote an entire book based on conversations he imagined with Sen. Ted Kennedy. The least we should be able to do is write an editorial based on our conversation with rhinoceros Daisey Mae over at the Baltimore Zoo:Us: What do you think about "Rhinos" as the possible name for a Baltimore professional football team?Daisey: Pass me a clump of that meadow grass, will ya?Us: Uh, sure. What about the name?Daisey: Actually, I'm a little insulted.Us: Insulted?Daisey: Yes. You've got 100-plus major league sports teams in America and none has ever adopted the heroic, powerful but non-predatory, image of the rhino.

GENEVA STEEL was considered a "loser" when it was cast off by USX, the nation's largest steelmaker, to a group of Utah businessmen in 1987. Equipment was decrepit, customers unhappy, employees openly rebellious.Today the plant near Salt Lake City is not so easily dismissed. Geneva was one of two integrated steel companies to report a profit in 1991 and has won praise from buyers and suppliers alike. What's more, with 2,800 well-paid, unionized workers and $400 million a year generated by local purchases and secondary employment, the plant contributes to a balanced Utah economy.

THE CORNFIELDS of central Indiana might seem an unlikely place for a steel mill, but then the gleaming oblong buildings rising near rural Crawfordsville don't look much like a steel mill, either.But a steel mill this is, and one that has revolutionized production. The plant takes scrap iron and, in one continuous movement, melts, casts, flattens and rolls the metal into coils of steel ready for shipment. Known as thin-slab casting, the process slices the time needed to turn raw materials into the steel used in making auto parts and appliances from seven days to under two hours.

Who wants to be a bailout recipient? We do! say the steel companies. Not content with what is likely to be the biggest public works program in decades, Big Steel wants to ensure taxpayers buy bridge, road, school and electric-grid steel only or largely from U.S. producers. Every provision in Congress' forthcoming stimulus should contain "a buy America clause," Nucor CEO Daniel R. DiMicco told The New York Times. What a good idea. The Buy America Act of 1933, signed by Herbert Hoover as he exited his miserable presidency, fueled a global trade war that hurt American exports and made the Great Depression even greater.

In a move that cheered automakers but angered domestic steel producers, the U.S. International Trade Commission yesterday eliminated most of its controversial tariffs on carbon-steel imports. The independent federal agency's ruling ends an unusual, high-profile feud between two American smokestack industries battered by global competition, Big Steel and its major customer, the auto industry. The commission's action will lower the price auto companies pay for steel and bring a similar benefit to other major steel buyers, such as implement makers Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co. Those same lower steel prices promise to pressure profits at many American steel producers.

CONSOLIDATION of big steel companies may be inevitable for their survival. It may also be in the national interest to encourage the merger of several money-losing companies, such as Bethlehem Steel, and promote greater efficiencies in this basic industry. But it is exceptionally bad policy for the federal government to assume the costs of the retiree health benefits of these firms to aid that consolidation. It would create a dangerous precedent and ongoing obligation for taxpayers while rewarding improvident decisions of bad management.

Unionized steel workers at Bethlehem Steel Corp. and the U.S. Steel Division of USX Corp. are being asked to forsake the high raises they traditionally get in return for better pension benefits, according to a tentative contract proposal obtained by The Sun.The proposed five-year deal would cover 10,000 Bethlehem workers, including about 3,800 at the company's Sparrows Point Division in Baltimore, and roughly 15,000 U.S. Steel workers. All are members of the United Steelworkers of America.

Though Big Steel has waged an aggressive fight over the imported steel it says stands at the core of its current woes, the situation is much more complex than it appears on its face. And the steel spat could easily end up in this country as a referendum on free trade, industry analysts and other economics experts say."Is there a problem in the steel industry right now? Certainly," said steel analyst Charles A. Bradford, head of Bradford Research in New York City. "Is foreign steel a part of it?

Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point Division has seen production fall and could face layoffs if the flood of cheap imported steel isn't stemmed, company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Curtis H. Barnette said yesterday."

The days when ocean liners, tankers and ships for the Navy's fleets were built in Baltimore died out some years ago.Down on Curtis Bay, though, the Coast Guard Yard has plugged along quietly.Like survivors of another industry -- Big Steel -- that lost out to overseas competitors, the yard found safety in its niche, thinking small.Yesterday the yard was the scene of an old-fashioned boat launching complete with band, white doves and a smashed champagne bottle, all to celebrate the first of a new class of buoy tender that will be built there over the next three years.

For 25 years, Larry Burks showed up for his job at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point plant stringing electric cable and wiring. His boss told him what to do, and his opinion wasn't welcomed.But now Mr. Burks sits on a joint labor management committee, and supervisors listen to how he thinks the plant should be run. And he's privy to what was once a highly guarded secret: monthly detailed reports on Sparrows Point's performance -- cash flow, return on net assets, even the amount and type of steel produced for each customer.

New leadership. That's what the stock market is seeking in this convoluted, volatile year.It just may come from the strangest places.Environmental services and big steel, two stock groups that have been heartbreakers to faithful investors in the past, may be ready to help provide the necessary boost.Their reasonable stock prices and improving business prospects are gaining attention:* Environmental services firms, their earnings pummeled by the weak environmental cleanup policies of the Bush and Clinton administrations, should benefit from the economic revival.

Joe McGinniss wrote an entire book based on conversations he imagined with Sen. Ted Kennedy. The least we should be able to do is write an editorial based on our conversation with rhinoceros Daisey Mae over at the Baltimore Zoo:Us: What do you think about "Rhinos" as the possible name for a Baltimore professional football team?Daisey: Pass me a clump of that meadow grass, will ya?Us: Uh, sure. What about the name?Daisey: Actually, I'm a little insulted.Us: Insulted?Daisey: Yes. You've got 100-plus major league sports teams in America and none has ever adopted the heroic, powerful but non-predatory, image of the rhino.