Category: Commentary/Editorial || By Submitted Reports

Readers react to news that U.S. Steel will layoff workers at McKeesport Tubular Operations and idle the plant "indefinitely." More reaction is available on our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

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I am an employee of the mill since 2008. My father worked here for a long time and I was proud to continue on his path.

I am a single mom who counted on having a future here with U.S. Steel and was proving a great future for my son. With this news today it breaks my heart not only that I can't follow my fathers path he led me to, but this leaves me in a bind with being the only support for my son.

Unfair trade is the reason. Sad day for the U.S. Steel families!

(Name withheld)

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I am sending this email on behalf of the employees that work for U.S. Steel Tubular Products.

How on Earth did this happen? I thought Reaganomics was over. We live in America, one of the richest countries in the world with some of the brightest people in the world and we are depending on foreign trade!

For what? To save a penny. If we make American products with American materials, we wouldn't need foreign trade now would we? How much fight did our government have? Why did they give up on the working class people of America? Why are we funding foreign companies to give us what we already know how to make?

McKeesport is one of those cities that has gone down hill since the Reagan years with all the mills shutting down, and now, basically the government is shoving that last knife into the jugular and turning it. The good people who work for US Steel deserve more than a pink slip. This is not how you grow in an economy.

What happened to expanding our economy, creating jobs, and being independent with our spending. Seriously! Somebody from U.S. Steel needs to take inventory and fight with the government on foreign trading.

America makes great products with steel. Pretty soon we aren't going to be able to label anything "Made in America" because then it's just words because all the pieces will be foreign made. The government needs to buck up and cut ties with these other countries. They should be buying from us. We live in a country that was started with railroads and steel and gold.

But no, the government is going to just sit around and watch people lose their jobs, their houses, their worth savings and their lives. Because the government wants to save a f--king penny. This burns my a--, and I have friends and family members that aren't around anymore that gave their souls to the steel industry. It's what America is.

The U.S. Government should be ashamed of themselves. We are so damn determined to spend money on illegal immigrants and set them up for life but we can't spend that extra penny on U.S. made product. Why?

The good people of this Corporation deserve better than this. And if nothing else, you need to find these people jobs where they won't lose everything they have worked for.

(The writer is daughter of a steelworker with 35 years of service. Her name has been withheld.)

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I think the U.S. Government needs to open their eyes and see what they are doing to the American workers.

How are these people suppose to live when you are taking their lively hood away and giving our tax dollars to Korea --- how is this fair! Obama cut unemployment and now is giving our jobs away!

Michelle T.

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