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Steelworkers Warn of Job Cuts
WASHINGTON -- More than 100,000 workers could be jobless this summer if the government doesn't do something soon to stop cheap foreign imports, the head of the United Steelworkers warned Wednesday.``We have 10,000 steel workers that are out of work now. We've got 100,000 that are on the edge,'' union president George Becker told senators.
If the barrage of imports isn't curbed, ``it's going to destroy, it's going to eliminate the steel industry as we know it today,'' he said.
The steel industry is awaiting a Feb. 12 preliminary ruling on its complaints alleging that Japan, Brazil and Russia dumped steel on the U.S. market for less than it cost them to make it.
Those countries and others dramatically increased their steel exports last year, in some instances quintupling them over 1997 levels, after economic crises dried up foreign demand for steel and left manufacturers with a choice between halting production or selling in the United States.
Once steel was offered in the United States at substantially lower prices than domestic companies charged, American steel buyers started ordering more of the cheaper imported product.
That has triggered layoffs, and Becker predicted additional layoffs after July, when a United Steelworkers contract with a no-layoff clause expires.
A ruling in February against the exporting countries would be a significant step toward retaliatory tariffs, which are designed to discourage the exports. But Becker and two steel company executives told the Senate Finance Committee that illegal dumping should be thwarted in advance rather than punished after the fact.
Senate Steel Caucus chairman Jay Rockefeller said senators may have to consider invoking a never-used provision of federal trade law if President Clinton doesn't act soon to help the steel industry.
``With so many steel workers suffering, I am not satisfied to wait,'' the West Virginia Democrat said.
The Senate Finance Committee has never used its power to invoke a clause in U.S. and international trade law allowing the United States to temporarily protect an entire industry, rather than examining complaints one product and one country at a time.
Rockefeller said the committee should consider its options under that provision, known as Section 201, but he would prefer to see presidential action, because it wouldn't take as long.
``He can do that in five minutes, he can do that in five hours, he could do that tomorrow morning,'' said Rockefeller.
Members of the Congressional Steel Caucus sent Clinton a letter Wednesday urging that the administration make its own Section 201 case ``as soon as the import data demonstrating serious injury to the American steel industry becomes available.''
The Commerce Department was to publish data on December steel imports on Thursday. Those figures were expected to show a decline in imports from Japan, but Commerce Secretary William Daley took pains earlier in the week to say a small, one-month drop would not be enough to end the possibility of sanctions.
Daley and U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky have promised quick decisions on the steel companies' dumping complaints.
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