The piecemeal sale of the RG Steel mills to various different buyers is not necessarily bad news across the board.
One steelworker local president says it does not necessarily mean that steel will never be produced in the Ohio Valley again.
"In some of the plants, steel may never be produced again," said Johnny Waugh, USWA president of Locals 1238 and 1238-A. "But it looks like some of the plants may have a future. It depends on what the bidders plan on doing with these plants. We're hearing that a local company bought the Martins Ferry plant, and we're hoping we can sit down with him and start it back up and produce galvanized steel once again in Martins Ferry."
Waugh says the results of the auction were not a shock.
In fact, they were expected.
"I didn't expect anyone to come in and buy the whole facility as it was," he said. "I knew it was going to be sold off piece by piece. And each company that bid will have to decide with their board of directors what they're going to do with their purchases."
Waugh clarifies that the company named 'Frontier' that bought the Mingo Junction plant for $20 million was not Frontier Steel of Pittsburgh.
"It's a different company than Frontier Steel of Pittsburgh," Waugh said. "It's just called 'Frontier.' I know nothing about them. I've heard rumors. And I wouldn't want to speculate on the rumors."
He says steel won't be made all by one big company in the Ohio Valley again.
And he speculates wages probably won't be what they were in the past.
But steel production may still exist in some form, in some place.
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