For eighteen years, Timothy Quinn was employed at the Clairton Coke Works. He was familiar with the noise, the smell, and the cadence of a shift. He left for work in August of last year and never returned home. He and his coworker Steven Menefee perished in an explosion at the plant, which US Steel claims was brought on by pressure building inside a gas valve and causing it to malfunction. Investigators later discovered that the valve was produced in 1973. US Steel makes more than $15 billion a year.
Timothy’s sister, Trisha Quinn, learned of her brother’s passing the way far too many families in industrial America do: via a phone call from his girlfriend, a series of calls to nearby hospitals, and ultimately a visit from company representatives to her mother’s home. “There was absolutely no communication,” she replied. Since then, she has accused Nippon Steel and two other businesses of negligence in a wrongful death lawsuit. Depending on how it plays out, this case could reveal a lot about what accountability really looks like when a foreign company buys an outdated American steel company and employees pass away months later.
The Nippon Steel Mon Valley lawsuit is part of a much bigger story about whether the nearly $15 billion acquisition of US Steel was truly about the communities and workers in western Pennsylvania or about something else entirely. Nippon has pledged $11 billion in domestic investment, including up to $2.5 billion for the Mon Valley Works alone. Announcements have been made. Press conferences have been held. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick stood in front of workers in orange uniforms at the Edgar Thomson Plant in Braddock last month and praised the deal with considerable enthusiasm.
And yet, standing in Braddock today, it’s hard to see what has changed. The town is located in one of the most sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide-polluted areas of the nation, along a 14-mile section of the Monongahela River. Black people make up more than 70% of Braddock’s population. The income per person is about $15,500. Within two miles of the plant are thousands of people. Nathan Mallory, a local councilmember who lives within earshot of the facility, puts it plainly: “There has been years and years of citations under US Steel. There is a belief that paying the health department’s fines is less expensive for US Steel than replacing the current blast furnaces with cleaner ones or installing containment equipment on them.
None of the $2.5 billion in announced upgrades appears to be earmarked for Clairton — the plant where Timothy Quinn died, where US Steel was fined $118,000 after the explosion and cited by federal safety investigators for inadequate procedures, training, and equipment. The new investment is concentrated on a hot strip mill at Edgar Thomson. Nippon’s clean-fuel ambitions, meanwhile, are pointed toward Arkansas, not Pennsylvania.
There’s a sense, talking to people in these communities, that they’ve developed a particular kind of fatigue — not quite cynicism, but something close. The announcement of $2.5 billion doesn’t have the same impact on them as it once did because they have witnessed promises come with fanfare and then fade without fulfillment for long enough. Mallory said local councilmembers have felt pressured by US Steel to approve a sewer connector resolution connected to the new mill project, without being fully informed about what the broader project entails. “We’re just fodder to the industry,” he replied. Although it’s a direct statement, it doesn’t seem overly dramatic.
From the beginning, the legal environment surrounding this acquisition has been complicated. Citing concerns about national security, Biden blocked the initial agreement. The Biden administration was sued by Nippon and US Steel, who claimed that the decision was politically motivated and lacked a sound legal foundation. A “golden share” clause that gave the federal government the authority to name a board member and restricted Nippon’s ability to lower its capital commitments ultimately led to the deal’s closure under the Trump administration. Last month, Lutnick stated that he does not believe the government will have to utilize those rights. “Nippon has been living up to its end,” he said.
At the level of business commitments and investment schedules, that might be the case. But the Nippon Steel Mon Valley lawsuit, filed by a woman who spent Father’s Day wondering how three children would cope with losing their father, is asking a different question. Not whether the deal was good for American steel in the abstract. However, it’s unclear if the workers who have been employed in these facilities for decades are safer now than they were in the past. The answer is still unclear.
