12:24 PM EST, 12/09/2024 (MT Newswires) -- (Update with United Steelworkers' response to a request for comment.)

Nippon Steel sent a letter addressed to US Steel employees, detailing plans to spend 'at least' $2.7 billion in capital expenditures on United Steelworkers-represented facilities, to garner support for its planned acquisition of US Steel.

"We had hoped that continued discussions" with the United Steelworkers union's leadership "would result in their support for the transaction."

In the letter, purportedly similar to that sent to the union's leadership, with "a few redactions," Nippon Steel addressed leadership concerns, and vowed to invest in US Steel's blast furnaces; commit at least $2.7 billion in capital expenditures to United Steelworkers-represented facilities; maintain operations at all blast furnaces currently operating; and schedule six blast furnaces for major repair or relining by 2030, among other commitments.

"Nippon Steel's latest letter to USW members demonstrates its increasing desperation to repackage empty, unenforceable promises," USW International President David McCall told MT Newswires via email. "Yet this communication, like those that came before it, remains riddled with the same exceptions and conditions as all its previous so-called commitments, allowing Nippon to back out or shift course for no other reason than changing business plans."

US Steel did not immediately reply to a request for comment from MT Newswires.

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