LTV Steelworkers go to Nation's Capitol in Effort to Save Company

Washington, DC - About 300 active and retired steelworkers from LTV Steel Corp. mills and mines in five states joined at a street corner demonstration near the U.S. Department of Commerce, joined by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka and Members of Congress to deliver a letter calling on the Emergency Steel Loan Guarantee Loan Board to act immediately to save one of America's largest steel makers.

The LTV steelworkers appeared daily on Capitol Hill the week of December 10, 2001, returning each evening to their tents, or what they call "Steel City Camp Solidarity" on the campus of the National Labor College in Silver Spring, MD.

The USWA and a coalition of community leaders forged an agreement with the Unsecured Creditors Committee of LTV and its lenders to keep the steel facilities in hot idle until mid-December, when a bankruptcy judge will decide to either allow efforts to save the company to continue, or to go forward with an asset sale and closure. A permanent shutdown of LTV Steel will threaten the health care benefit obligations paid to 60,000 retirees and surviving spouses.