The decine and recovery of the US Steel industry Essay

The decine and recovery of the US Steel industry - Essay Examplewith foreign steel. However, this had significant, lingering after-effects that did not produce nearly the results judge or hoped for. Addition completelyy, the power of labor unions added significantly to the decline of this industry during the same period, something that is currently being redeveloped by the U.S. political system. The steel industry has been plagued with lowered direct for steel products in construction and in automotive due to a variety of global economic factors being mat across the globe. This report highlights all of the factors behind the decline and the current slow recovery of the steel industry, including the aforementioned tariff and labor union influence, the existence of increasing pension payouts for Baby baby boomer retirees, changing consumer and industrial customer buying behaviors, changing construction patterns globally, as well as the influence of Wall Street on this industry. Decl ine Factors Tariffs and grasp Impacts In the early 2000s, the U.S. steel industry was plagued with considerable problems that were causing significant disruptions to profitability. First, there were many bubbles occurring in the stock market during this period that were eroding consumer effrontery and reducing construction for materials requiring steel in their construction, such as automotive products and various consumer appliances. In an effort to help companies that were on the verge of bankruptcy during this period, prexy Bush imposed import tariffs as an effort to slow illegal dumping of foreign-made steel and also to boost profitability for these struggling industries. These tariffs consisted of a 15 to 30 percent commission by early 2002, however the end results of this effort were the production of internal disputes with domestic steel industry ownership who felt that this limited competitive edge and also made foreign buyers seek forward-looking market opportunities f or the export of their own domestically-made steel (Blecker, 2002). Therefore, even though it be more opportunities for domestic production to increase, it limited the scope of steel-related partnerships with disgruntled foreign steel producers and limited their expansion potential across the globe. Further, the backlash of various switch disputes did, indeed, force steel manufacturers outside of the United States to begin the process of looking for new export opportunities, thus eroding even more opportunities for this industry in the process. Additionally, during this time period, less regulatory presence in the steel industry gave considerable authority to various labor unions, such as the United Steelworkers of the States (USWA), which began demanding higher wage increases for workers and therefore eroding profitability in an already struggling industry (Ikenson, 2002). What was occurring was that steel industries were already experiencing lowered demand for products both dome stically and abroad and were on the verge of bankruptcy at the time. The power of these unions was exerted in an effort to prevent, at any cost, plant closings in an effort to save American jobs with the USWA. These efforts were ultimately successful, in conjunction with the new tariffs imposed, and forced steel industry owners to continue production and operate, essentially, in the red for a period of years until new regulatory powers began to erode the power of these labor unions. Today, there