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Nippon Steel is offering $5,000 bonuses to U.S. Steel employees if it closes on its $14.9 billion acquisition of the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker, one of the Calumet Region's largest employers.
The Japan-based steelmaker said it will offer closing bonuses to union workers and to non-union workers below the senior manager level.
"We have listened to unions and government officials who have argued that, in large corporate transactions, rank-and-file employees often receive nothing that recognizes their contributions to the value generated for stockholders," Representative Director and Vice Chairman of Nippon Steel Takahiro Mori said in a statement issued Tuesday. "Through our commitment to this Closing Bonus, we want to address that concern. We want to thank all of U. S. Steel's employees for their continued hard work. Our goal is to protect and grow U. S. Steel, and its people are the most important asset in achieving this goal. We hope that this bonus demonstrates Nippon Steel's long-term commitment to sharing the success of U. S. Steel and providing a more secure future for employees, their families, and communities. After closing, we look forward to working with all stakeholders to grow U.S. Steel into the best steel company in the United States for decades."
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The company plans to offer nearly $100 million in closing bonuses, including of €3,000 to U.S. Steel's European employees.
The United Steelworkers union, which has been staunchly opposed to a deal it fears will weaken domestic steelmaking, called the bonuses "bribery."
"Nippon Steel today employed a classic union-busting tactic in a final, desperate attempt to win over support for its doomed acquisition of U.S. Steel: simple bribery," USW District 7 Director Mike Millsap and International President David McCall said in an update to steelworkers. "We have seen this sort of corporate behavior before, and we know what it really means. Nippon is begging union members to trade our long-term stability and bargaining power in exchange for a single payment. But we won't be fooled. This offer ultimately does nothing to change the stakes of the deal, the lasting damage it could do to our domestic steel industry or the grave implications for our national and economic security."
The union said it is concerned with the long-term implications of a deal that would leave only one integrated steelmaker left under U.S. ownership.
"Our union's concern with the proposed U.S. Steel-Nippon deal is how badly it would undermine the viability of the domestic steel industry, not just now but well into the future," Millsap and McCall said. "Nippon proved it will stop at nothing. It's thrown everything it has at advancing this transaction, demonstrating increasing levels of desperation. We should be asking why. Is it to eliminate a U.S. competitor? To subvert our trade system from within? To shift the nature of the global steel market? We need to keep asking these questions. We need to keep holding Nippon accountable for the damage it's already done through its unfair trade practices. And we need to see this offer for what it is: an empty gesture meant to distract us from the threat this transaction poses to our jobs, our industry and our national security."
The Biden administration is reportedly poised to block the deal and the incoming Trump administration also announced it would stop the merger from closing. Nippon Steel said it will weigh legal action if the acquisition is blocked.
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