On Friday, just hours before United States Steel shareholders approved the sale of the legendary Pittsburgh-based company to Japan's Nippon Steel, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves stood in front of a packed room of steelworkers at his Butler Works plant and let them know just what he thought of the pending vote.
"The CEO works out of Peoria, Illinois. The CFO works out of Connecticut. The general council works out of Florida. There's nobody in that building. Everybody works from home. After we take over, we're going to have more people in that building than they have now," he claimed. Burritt said under Nippon ownership, the Japanese company "will maintain the U.S. Steel name and Pittsburgh headquarters."
"Until it's closed, it's not a deal. It's just a pie in the sky," said Goncalves, whose Cleveland-based company has the backing of the union. "That's the strength of our relationship. That's how this country became the United States of America, the envy of the world. And that's what we need to bring back. ... This is a very important moment in the history of manufacturing in the United States," he said.
In a recent interview with the Washington Examiner, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., a Scranton Democrat up for reelection against Republican businessman Dave McCormick, said he opposed the sale to Nippon Steel on several different levels.