Arceormittal Long Products says he is closing its wire factory in Hamilton, which potentially affects more than 150 people.
The decision announced on Wednesday occurs after the United States doubled its tariffs on foreign steel last week to 50 percent, which has generated generalized concerns about the viability of the Canada’s steel sector, since it sells many of its products to the US market.
A company spokesman did not respond to comments requests, but the company said in a press release that its wire drag activities will be “”
completely concentrated “in its installation in
Montreal
“We just learned this morning,” said Mike Hnatjuk, president of United Steelworkers Local 5328. “They are announcing it to the changes that are closing it at the end of the month.”
He said that the union would begin negotiations next week with the company for the closure, but it was not clear if the affected employees would be released or offered new positions in Montreal.
Arceormittal Long Products has the same parent company as Arfasco Arfasco, the largest flat knee steel producer in Canada, but the two operate independently.
HNATJUK said the company has long specialized in a variety of wire products, such as cables for bridges and products similar to reinforcement, but businesses have slowly decreased in recent decades as a product after another lost market share.
He blamed China for flooding the market with cheap steel products that make it not economy to produce in Canada.
Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) also pointed to China, saying that its steel subsidy rate is more than 10 times greater than the rate in an average OECD country.
“Chinese steel exports have more than doubled since 2020, reaching a record level of 118 million tons in 2024,” said the OECD. “This increase has interrupted steel markets in OECD economies, which leads to an increase of five times in anti -dumping measures since 2023”.
Hnatjuk said Arceormittal Long Products told him that the mill in Hamilton has been losing more than US $ 2.6 million every year during the last five years. In recent months, he said that about 25 percent of the workforce had been fired.
“They said even without these tariffs that this could have happened,” said Hnatjuk. “I take it since the rates were like the nail in the coffin.”
The announcement occurs a day after Ron Bedard, executive director of Arceormittal Dofasco, a different division of the same company that has 5,000 employees only in Hamilton, said that it had become “flat, neglected and lazy” in terms of allowing US sales to feed the growth of their company.
He also said that he would focus more on the Canadian market in the future, even if US tariffs were eliminated. The comments occurred when speaking at the conference of the Association of Automotive Parts manufacturers in Vaughn, Ontario, Tuesday and praised their workers.
“Many of our employees are the single support at home, and they are some of the best paid industrial workers in Canada,” he said. “But they care about the stability of our industry, so we are doing everything we can, with each decision … to ensure that we are putting people first.”
Bedard said he has regularly met with Mélanie Joly, the Federal Industry Minister, and Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development of Ontario, who attended the conference.
Last week, the Canadian Association of Steel Producers, a lobbying group of the industry, requested an urgent action in response to the high steel tariffs of the United States.
Eddie Hutchinson, spokesman for the CSPA, said that his group wants the Canadian government to restore retaliation rates in US steel to the new level of 50 percent.
He said that the CSPA also wants Canada to increase tariffs on the steel of several other countries “to stop the steel flow unfairly marketed to enter Canada and cannibalize our industry.”
• Email: gfriedman@postmedia.com
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