Mei W.
Last month, Cleveland-Cliffs announced that it will shut down two iron ore mines in Virginia and Hibbing, Minnesota and a steel plant in Dearborn, Michigan this summer, which will result in the indefinite layoff of 1,230 workers across the three locations.
The steelmaking and mining company cites the overproduction of iron ore pellets for the closures and mass layoffs, stating that these are measures to “re-balance working capital needs and consume excess pellet inventory produced in 2024.” Overproduction and decreasing demand have impaired the company’s profitability—CEO Lourenco Goncalves reported in February that the company lost more than $700 million this past year and $430 million in the fourth quarter of 2024 alone.
The three locations produce steel used in the automobile industry, which has been hit particularly hard by the general economic crisis of overproduction. To save profitability, companies fire workers en masse, placing the burden of the capitalists’ crisis onto the working people, driving up unemployment and driving down wages.
In the announcement, Cleveland-Cliffs vice president Robert Fischer stated, “While we anticipate these layoffs will be temporary, we cannot predict their length, which may exceed six months.” In 2022, almost 500 workers at the company were fired due to the overproduction of iron ore and were left without work for nearly a year. In 2024, 900 Cleveland-Cliffs workers were fired indefinitely as steel corporations continued their shift to electric arc furnace technology and away from older and more labor-intensive blast furnace production.
In January, former President Biden blocked Nippon Steel’s purchasing of US Steel, which Nippon Steel and US Steel allege in a lawsuit had involved the coordination of Biden, Cleveland-Cliff’s Goncalves, and United Steelworkers president David McCali. The blockage deployed chauvinist language around keeping the strategic steel industry “American” and that American ownership is good for workers.
Following the blocking, Cleveland Cliff quickly renewed its buyout offer which US Steel rejected in 2023. The mass layoffs are announced within months after Gonclaves announced the renewed offer in January, in which he claimed that the “all-American” Cleveland-Cliffs exemplifies how “American ownership of steel plants can support existing jobs, generate new jobs, and generate profit.”
The different factions of the imperialist ruling class and their Democratic and Republican party mafias present competing visions for saving capital from its crisis: “free trade” on one hand and “protectionism” on the other, with both being different tactics for deepening the imperialist domination of the third world, deceiving workers about the nature of the crisis, while keeping other imperialists in second place. Meanwhile the destruction of the overproduced means of production, including labor-power, is advancing.
Image: Cleveland-Cliffs mining facility on Lake Superior, in Silver Bay, Minnesota , Tony Webster, Wikimedia Commons
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