ArcelorMittal Cleveland plant remains idle; some jobs shifting to Indiana

By Times of Northwest Indiana Staff and Wire Reports

CLEVELAND -- The manager of ArcelorMittal's plant in Cleveland says the facility's blast furnaces are at least three months away from making steel again.

ArcelorMittal's local general manager Terry Fedor said Friday that the company will shift about 100 of the plant's 300 salaried employees to plants in West Virginia and Indiana by early March. The temporary assignments could last up to six months.

The plant has been idle since October, when the Luxembourg-based company ordered a temporary shut down because of the slumping steel business. About 450 hourly workers have been laid off since then.

United Steelworkers Local 979 president Mark Granakis says hundreds more layoffs are possible in the coming weeks.

Beginning Sunday, the majority of the 450 workers at the steel company's Indiana Harbor East No. 4 bar plant in East Chicago will be laid off for two to three weeks.

Tom Hargrove, president of United Steelworkers Local 1010, said the number of workers who will remain working during the layoff at the No. 4 plant, also called the bar company, "will be small." Hargrove, whose local represents the 3,550 workers at Indiana Harbor East, met with the plant workers Thursday.

Indiana Harbor East has about 100 hourly workers on voluntary layoff and an additional 16 workers on involuntary layoff, Hargrove said. He said there was no way to know Thursday if more layoffs are coming or how long they would last.