A deadly steel accident brings Pennsylvania rivals together

Washington Post

14 hours ago

Salena Zito is a columnist for the Washington Examiner.
CLAIRTON, Pa. — At 10:47 a.m. Monday, every worker in every U.S. Steel facility across the country — from the headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh to the plants in Gary, Indiana, and Fairless Hills in Bucks County — stopped what they were doing to observe a moment of silence. It had been one week since an explosion at the largest coking operation in North America took the lives of two men, Timothy Quinn and Steven Menefee, and injured 10 others.
At the Irvin Plant in West Mifflin, a siren blew, then it blew again. In the three minutes in between, the people present stood with their heads bowed in prayer with quiet tears. At the coke works in Clairton, it was even harder: The pain was fresh, personal, gutting. Only the processes that could not safely be stopped weren't silenced.
Unless you have worked in a steel mill — or another job for which you walk into danger every day, such as firefighter, police officer or soldier — it is difficult to adequately convey the love these workers have for one another and the aspiration their craft requires of them.
But their unity in grief comes after months of strife that divided not just the workforce but the entire state, including the business leaders and elected officials now tasked with helping pick up the pieces.
The explosion occurred just two months after President Donald Trump approved U.S. Steel's nearly $15 billion deal with Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel. The agreement has lifted hopes for steel communities, but the negotiations were divisive and ran headlong into the presidential election. The proposed sale split local union officials and rank-and-file members, who supported it, from their international president in Cleveland, who led the opposition. It also surfaced long-simmering tensions between company management and state elected officials.
No two men butted heads more than Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Montgomery County Democrat, and U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt.
Their differences came to a head on Nov. 19, exactly two weeks after the election. Shapiro, who months earlier had said he could not support a deal between Nippon and U.S. Steel, gathered several of his top staffers, as well as key players from both companies, at his office in the Capitol in Harrisburg to discuss the future of U.S. Steel.
It didn't go well.
In fact, it went so badly that Shapiro unceremoniously ejected Burritt from the room less than 10 minutes after the meeting began, both men told me.
Burritt smiles about the moment now; at the time, though, he admits he was not amused. He recalls that the meeting began with Nippon executive Takahiro Mori giving the group an assessment of the virtues of the deal between Nippon and U.S. Steel. Burritt was then slated to follow with a discussion of what would happen if the deal did not go through.
Burritt's presentation was not as smooth as he would have liked. He wanted to show how the Nippon investment was in the best interest of the community. But his remarks veered into complaints, he says, about how 'it's been difficult for us to do business in Pennsylvania' because of state and local regulations, including a high-profile fight over permitting in Allegheny County. It was partly for these reasons that U.S. Steel had already announced its next-generation plant would be built in Arkansas.
The governor took offense and, Burritt recalls, said something to the effect of: 'You've disrespected the workers, you've disrespected me, and, if you continue like this, you're going to have to leave.' The CEO says he answered back a little too bluntly — he is a very blunt man — and Shapiro told him to get out. So he did.
Shapiro is known to be prickly sometimes, but he says Burritt is the only person he has ever thrown out of his office. Still, in his gut, he knew someday the two could work together.
'I never, ever, ever close the door on dialogue with anyone,' Shapiro says, then deadpans: 'Well, literally, the door did close on him when he left my office.'
But, he adds, 'I think in this business, my job is to find ways to bring people together.'
That someday did not arrive when the deal was finalized between the U.S. Steel and Nippon: It happened last week when Burritt called Shapiro to brief him on Clairton.
Within moments of the news of the explosion, both men were working together to face the tragedy. Burritt was on the scene immediately, going directly to the heads of safety and manufacturing. His calls back and forth with the governor were earnest.
Both men were at the plant the next day to address the loss of life. Both tell me their goal is to get to the bottom of what happened so it does not happen again. Shapiro says he will hold Burritt to that pledge, and Burritt says he holds himself to it.
So often, the intersection of business and politics is presented in terms of malign influence one way or the other: campaign donations, election endorsements, overregulation, political opposition to industry and its practices. But, more often, business and politics intersect at the level of personality, with individuals building relationships over time to try to find policy that works for both sides. We rarely read about that. It's often boring. But the tragedy in Clairton last week highlights how strong personalities in the private and public sectors can bring comfort, move things forward and even give people hope.
In Pennsylvania, it's also what's expected.
Darrin Kelly, the head of the Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council, was on the scene within an hour and praised how the two men found a way to come together.
'They both showed up the next day, they committed to making sure they got to the bottom of whatever happened, and they behaved like adults when that was something that the men and women here needed,' says Kelly, whose local AFL-CIO affiliate includes more than 100,000 workers across several western Pennsylvania counties, including members of the local United Steelworkers union.
It's the Pennsylvania way, says Kelly.
He's not wrong. Our politics has created what outsiders see as strange bedfellows, but those who live and work here see it as normal. Sen. John Fetterman, a Braddock Democrat, established a relationship with Trump that perplexes the D.C. press. Fetterman and his wife, Gisele, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago ahead of the inauguration, with Trump telling me he found Fetterman impressive. Shapiro was considered for the Democratic ticket that ran against Trump in 2024, but he called the Nippon and U.S. Steel deal a 'BFD,' and credited the president for his negotiating skills and willingness to engage with the governor's office. Shapiro and Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pennsylvania) are set to do yet another AI-energy event together in Pittsburgh next month.
Shapiro says his meeting with Burritt ahead of the news conference, and their subsequent conversations, showed no traces of any lingering animosity. However, he stresses that as governor, he has a duty to get to the bottom of what happened. The company's early explanation is that a valve failed as it was being flushed for planned maintenance, but a U.S. Steel spokesperson added in a statement that 'this investigation is in its early stages.'
'I think it's important that we work together,' Shapiro says. 'I will hold him accountable for the commitments he made to me and the community to provide a full accounting for what happened or why it happened — and to fix whatever the situation is so that when those steelworkers go back into the plant, they can be assured that they are safe.'
He adds he expects Burritt will do just that: 'He gave me his word, and I take him at his word.'
Burritt, for his part, was pleased with the governor last week, praising 'his comportment, his [reaching] out, and his compassion and his focus … in search of truth.'
The CEO struggles to keep his emotions in check when talking about the men and women who work in the plants at U.S. Steel. On Saturday, he attended the memorial service for Quinn; on Tuesday, for Menefee.
'These men and women work in difficult situations together for an extended period of time; they are rugged, tough and reliable, and every day they go into the plant not knowing what will happen,' he says. 'Unless you've actually worked with these people and seen what they go through every day — they earn their pay, they earn their benefits. They are worth every bit.'
As for speculation that the fatal explosion raised questions about the plant's future, Burritt dismisses it out of hand. 'That plant will be around for a very, very long time,' he tells me.
In managing the aftermath of the explosion alongside Shapiro, Burritt says he will honor the code of conduct that started with the Gary Principles, named after Judge Elbert Gary, the first chairman of U.S. Steel, who created a corporate code of ethics for the then-new company more than 100 years ago.
'We were the first company that we know of that had an explicit code of conduct,' Burritt says. 'It is safety first, trust and respect, environmental stewardship, excellence and accountability, and then lawful and ethical conduct.'
Plus, it's easy to remember: It spells out 'steel.'