U.S. Steel to idle Granite City Works steel mill

Lower demand for steel used in the automotive and construction industries is leading United States Steel Corp. to temporarily idle the Granite City Works steel mill and two others, the company said late Tuesday afternoon.

As of mid-November, the Granite City plant employed more than 2,100 hourly workers and salaried employees. U.S. Steel would not say Tuesday how many of the area workers would be laid off but said about 3,500 workers across the three plants would be affected.

(h/t Kevin over at CapFax; emphasis added)

I’ve posted twice before (one, two) asking why the heck conservative partisans are blaming unions for Detroit’s economic woes; even noting that cons are using very fuzzy math to promote their partisan spin. Others have been calling the GOP out for its baloney on the issue as well. All indications are that it is completely management’s hands — unions made major concessions, even some mid-contract, and have been advocating for better, more efficient cars for literally decades.

When the execs at HQ decide to push SUVs instead of more fuel-efficient vehicles and use plastic clips instead of metal ones … the unions have no control over those matters.

When the execs at banks and lenders decide to use their newly deregulated options (thanks to Republican Senators in the late 90s) to push ever riskier loans, even falsifying loan docs to ram through more loans, with little fear or forethought of the consequences … the auto unions have no control over those matters.

That said, I do favor limited, highly supervised (ie, “regulated”) bailout options for the Big Three. I was also ok with bailing out the white collar folks at the banks — albeit with the same push for tight scrutiny, which unfortunately has absolutely not happened.

Detroit is looking for bridge loans to make it through tough times. The laissez-faire, let-the-market-decide approach advocated by modern conservatives will have the unfortunate and very direct effect (as seen by US Steel’s action, above) of pushing our year-old Recession even deeper.

We’ve been through this before in this country. When Pres. Hoover was overseeing the Great Depression nearly three-quarters of a century ago his own laissez-faire, let-the-market-decide policies led to long lines at the soup kitchen for out of work Americans. When FDR took over, his progressive, hands-on approach improved things literally overnight … and it wasn’t until he grew overconfident and pulled back the reins a bit that the economy’s improvements actually (again, almost literally overnight) began reverting backwards.

Despite the conservatives anti-union rants and false economic spin, a progressive approach — taking a direct, all-hands-on-deck view of economic policy — is exactly what we need.

…And you can ask those 3,500 families who rely on a job at U.S. Steel why.

(For the record: Yes, it should be regulated. The Bush/Paulson free-for-all clearly hasn’t been working since Congress approved the $700 billion national lottery for bank execs.)