As many as 500 positions are set to disappear at Stelco Holdings over the coming three weeks, and the first layoff notices have now landed at the company’s Hamilton, Ont., steel plant as the cuts begin to take shape.
Ron Wells, president of United Steelworkers Local 1005, said workers who got notices on Wednesday were instructed not to come back for their next scheduled shift. He expects roughly 90 people to be notified this week, and the earliest layoffs will kick in on Sunday.
Because the plant has to be winterized and taken down so it can be fired back up once orders return, the wind down is happening in phases, Wells said. Crews were still rolling steel this week that then had to be shipped, which he said is one reason the process stretches across several weeks.
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The Hamilton cuts are expected to hit about 330 workers, with further reductions among co-op staff and employees on the pickling operations at Lake Erie Works in Nanticoke. There, United Steelworkers Local 8782 president John McElroy said the company is scaling back its steel pickling lines and that 40 to 50 workers could be let go as soon as Oct. 24.
Salaried staff have so far avoided the cuts, which have landed entirely on unionized employees, Wells said. The company is calling the layoffs indefinite, though the union considers them temporary under its collective agreement.
Owned by U.S.-based Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., Stelco announced the plan last week and pointed to the ongoing trade crisis, weak demand and continued import pressure.
Wells, who has spent 47 years at the mill, said the workforce feels betrayed and described the situation as a manufactured crisis in which employees are being used as pawns.
