Hundreds of West Virginia workers have been thrown back into job hunting in a labor market with slashed wages as a plant in Weirton closed last week. The plant closure comes as the federal government refused to impose tariffs on cheap imported tin.
“It’s a tough situation. We’re used to working locally and making a decent wage. Everything [else] around here is a 40 percent pay cut,” Dan Strapazzon, 41 years old, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about finding a new job.
Strapazzon, along with about 900 others, were told in February they would be laid off at Weirton’s Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. tin plant.
The reason for the closure, executives said, is because the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) refused to allow the Commerce Department to impose tariffs on unfairly subsidized and cheap imported tin products from Canada, China, Germany, and South Korea.
And they have fewer job opportunities than the eastern shore, and that’s bad enough,