USW Applauds Trade Commission Vote on OCTG Imports from China
05/26/2009 - The United Steelworkers calls the decision to proceed with the trade case investigation of OCTG imports from China ‘an urgent step for the thousands of laid-off workers at idled pipe production facilities of seven domestic companies’.
Responding to the U.S. International Trade Commission’s vote on China imports of oil country tubular goods, the United Steelworkers (USW) called the decision to proceed with the trade case investigation an urgent step for the thousands of laid-off workers at idled pipe production facilities of seven domestic companies.
“The OCTG producers and jobless pipe workers are paying the price of China's massive government subsidies and unfair dumping of imports in our market,” said USW President Leo W. Gerard. “More than a third of this industry's 6,000 workers are now laid off, threatening the future of a critical product used in our energy extraction industry.”
The USW joined together with seven domestic OCTG producers to file an antidumping and countervailing duty trade case against these imports with the ITC and the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) in early April.
The USW and the domestic companies allege that Chinese producers benefit from significant government subsidies and dumping margins ranging from 40 to 90%. According to the USW, the increase in Chinese imports of OCTG are made worse by the global recession, which has increased the impact on jobs in the steel and pipe manufacturing sector.
The seven producers that joined with the USW for the OCTG petition include U.S. Steel Corp., Pittsburgh, Pa.; Maverick Tube Corp., Hickman, Ark.; Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel, Pueblo, Colo.; TMK Ipsco, Downers Grove, Ill.; V&M Star, LLP, Houston, Texas.; V&M TCA, Houston, Texas.; and Wheatland Tube Corp., Beachwood, Ohio.
According to Schagrin Associates, trade counsel for the USW, the ITC’s vote allows the Department of Commerce investigation to proceed immediately. A preliminary Department of Commerce anti-subsidy finding is expected by September 8, and a preliminary dumping finding should be completed by November 6, 2009.
