"Over the past few months, with their labor contract set to end, USW members felt confident their hard-fought efforts to help restore the corporation to its best financial position in a decade would be rewarded," Cucarese said. "But CEO David Burritt had other plans, approaching the contract negotiations with an insulting offer of minimal pay raises that would immediately be wiped out by astronomical increases in what workers would have to pay for health insurance over a proposed six-year period. Burritt wanted to eliminate overtime rules, give the corporation the ability to shorten work weeks with no notice, change health plans with no notice and institute a plethora of other injustices that would wipe out 70 years of USW collectively bargained improvements for workers."

The steel industry has been booming with the Section 232 tariffs of 25 percent, and steelworkers want a share of the profits their work creates, Cucarese said.