In late April, United Steelworkers (USW) members got a text message that should have been reassuring but, instead, raised more questions than it answered.
Union leaders told members U.S. Steel had floated the idea of starting bargaining early, that the two sides had gone “back and forth” over what that would take and, in the end, bargaining would “take place as usual, starting later this summer.”
Reading between those careful lines: An opportunity to get ahead of the clock came and went.
Reporting later showed the sticking point was healthcare assurances, and USW later said healthcare was members’ top bargaining priority. But starting later was simply a delay dressed up as strategy to let members think the union was participating in productive bargaining.
That matters more than it might sound. The current four-year contract runs out Sept. 1. Formal bargaining finally began on July 20, just 43 days before the deadline.
U.S. Steel opened with a five-year proposal that, by its own public summary, includes wage increases compounding to about 18.2 percent, a $4,000 ratification bonus and no changes to the pensions or uncapped profit-sharing formula.
It gave leadership something concrete to work with. If talks stall or spill into a lockout, the cost doesn't stop at the negotiating table. It’s lost wages, disrupted health coverage and retirement uncertainty for workers who did nothing wrong.
It’s tighter budgets and delayed bills at home. It’s the corner store, the church collection plate and the local school district all feeling a plant running shorthanded or not running at all. Steel towns don’t have much room to absorb a slowdown that leadership could have avoided. That’s the risk USW leadership created when it let the early start slip away.
Here’s what makes a rocky start especially frustrating: This is exactly the moment USW leadership could reset.
USW's leadership transition in March gave the union a clean opportunity to move forward. Instead, the early stumble looks like more of the same insular decision-making and political score-settling that's frustrated rank-and-file members for years — dating back to leadership's fight against the Nippon Steel deal itself.
A new president did not produce a new approach. The same organization that misread its members on the merger began the next major negotiation by wasting time.
That fight, the record now shows pretty clearly, was the wrong one. When Nippon proposed its $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel in December 2023, it came with real commitments, which included $2.7 billion in capital investment dedicated to USW facilities, a 10-year pledge against reducing production capacity at mills in six states, $5,000 closing bonuses and written commitments to honor existing union contracts.
National leadership fought it anyway. Plenty of rank-and-file members didn't follow along. As one local union officer put it at the time, members “don't care who signs our paycheck. (They) just want the investments and the job security.” the Washington Post noted that despite national leadership's opposition, many rank-and-file members backed the deal.
USW was standing in the way of its own members.
That opposition is now closed as a matter of record, too. In September 2025, USW, Nippon Steel, U.S. Steel, and Cleveland-Cliffs settled their outstanding disputes — a lawsuit against USW President David McCall was dismissed and an unfair labor practice charge the union had filed against U.S. Steel was withdrawn.
The fight is over. The only question left is whether leadership treats it that way. The union’s campaign did nothing more than try and fail to keep its own workers from a good deal.
Those rank-and-file members were right. Nippon’s initial Mon Valley commitment of $1 billion has grown to somewhere between $2 billion and $2.5 billion — more than double the original number — with the company projecting up to 6,381 jobs and $1.7 billion in economic impact for Pennsylvania.
Those are company projections tied to specific facilities and specific work. The $5,000 bonuses have already gone out. Nearly 50 Nippon Steel professionals have been sent to U.S. Steel sites to help modernize operations.
Even Pennsylvania (Sen.) John Fetterman, one of the deal’s loudest critics, now calls the Mon Valley investment “great news for our community, our steelworkers and the union way of life.”
U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, touring the Edgar Thomson Plant, said the company is living up to the deal.
None of that happened because national leadership got out of the way gracefully. It happened despite the fight, not because of it.
That’s the lesson USW leadership should be carrying into this summer’s talks, and the early stumble in April suggests it hasn’t landed yet.
USW tried to block the deal, lost, then watched the bonuses arrive and the investment commitment more than double anyway.
This isn't one bad week or one scheduling dispute. This is a pattern. Members wanted the investment, and national leadership fought it. When they wanted healthcare addressed, leadership let the chance to start early disappear.
In both cases, the union put its own posture first and left workers to carry the risk.
Union leadership has no excuse here. Reset relationships, negotiate in good faith and show members it’s finally listening to them instead of its own instincts.
What it shouldn’t do is let old political battles bleed into a negotiation that’s supposed to be about wages, benefits and job security for the people who actually work the line.
The longer this drags out over grudges instead of substance, the longer steelworkers wait for the stability a working deal has already started to deliver.
The record gives workers no reason to accept another excuse. USW fought the investment they wanted, delayed bargaining over the priority they put first and left them to absorb the consequences if the process now breaks down.
Steelworkers deserve leadership focused on their futures, not on refighting a battle it already lost. Pennsylvania deserves the same.
Neither is getting it from USW.
Aaron Withe is the CEO of the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting workers' rights and advancing employee freedom across America.
