The Granite City Steel Mill Set to Re-Open

Granite City Steel Mill Set to Re-Open

100 maintenance workers will return to U.S. Steel's Granite City steel mill this week to prepare for the plant to restart production.

Jeff Evans stated that as many as 600 steel workers who work in the plant's blast furnace could be back in three to four weeks.

"I was told others would return soon, but they didn't give me a time frame," Evans said.

He has also heard that workers could be converting hot liquid steel strip into slabs in four weeks.

"It take a couple weeks to warm up the blast furnace," he said. "If they don't warm them up, that could cause damage."

U.S. Steel Corp. announced Monday that the Pittsburgh-based company plans to recall about 800 laid-off workers at a plant in Canada this summer. The Hamilton, Ontario, plant will restart production at its coke ovens to produce coke that will be shipped to Granite City Works.

The Canadian mill employed about 1,700 people when it was idled in October. About 700 workers elected to retire early. and more than 800 were laid off in waves starting in November.

Dowling said the reopening of the Granite City Steel mill represents a "glimmer of hope," though "we don't know how prolonged this increase will be. We're certainly hopeful that it's a sign of a more general recovery in manufacturing."

Let's hope this thing gets up and going so that our community can get back to business as usual.