World Steel Tube News report EU.S. Steel Corp. said Friday it’s laying off 142 workers at its McKeesport Tubular Operations plant, which produces pipe for energy-sector and other customers.
The Downtown-based steelmaker said high levels of tubular imports made cutbacks necessary, and that it believes many imports are unfairly traded. Ninety-five employees will remain at the McKeesport plant.
World Steel Tube Provide“While we have made every effort to maintain employment levels at our operations,” a statement from the company said, “unfortunately we must now adjust our workforce to match our production levels.”
World Steel Tube Provide Spokeswoman Courtney Boone said U.S. Steel couldn’t speculate on the duration of the layoffs. She said workers would be notified at the facility, and the United Steelworkers has been notified.
Union spokesman R.J. Hufnagel had no immediate comment.
World Steel Tube Provide Boone declined to say how the move would affect the production schedule at the plant, which makes welded pipe for above-ground applications.
U.S. Steel returned in May 2011 to the pipe-rolling plant that it left in the 1980s, invested tens of millions of dollars and doubled the workforce. Prior to that, a U.S. Steel spinoff, Camp-Hill Corp., had operated the plant for 20 years.
World Steel Tube Provide Camp-Hill was the last vestige of a complex that began with the National Tube Works in 1872 and covered the Monongahela River shore until 1987.