When Nippon Steel put a $14.9 billion offer on the table for U.S. Steel in December 2023, the American steel industry looked like this: roughly 89.7 million net tons of raw steel produced that year, about 83,950 workers employed across iron and steel manufacturing, and a United Steelworkers union representing roughly 540,000 reported members across steel, aluminum, mining, and other sectors. 

That was the backdrop against which USW‘s national leadership decided to fight the deal.