town. it s used to be known as ford s second city. ford had a big plant here that closed down about ten years ago. we still have a ford plant located down in avon which is a suburb of lorraine but lorraine was a huge, powerful industrial town in its day and last thing we have is our steel mill and we want to continue to keep that going because the community depends on that tremendously for economic base. that way of life came under attack when china flooded the global market with below cost steel. your particular industry, the capacity to produce steel in china is expanding significantly. is that accurate? it s extraordinary. the expansion of the still capacity is stripping its projected demand. that is the case. they are the most underpriced market on the globe today and a consequence of oversupply. reporter: domestic production took a hit and thousands of
i went to lorraine, ohio, to talk to frustrated workers about the city s once booming steel industry. more on that is coming up. first, mary landrieu. trenders is next. stay with us. no two people have the same financial goals. pnc works with you to understand yours and help plan for your retirement. visit a branch or call now for your personal retirement review. are you still sleeping? just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule.
for most folks in lorraine, steel is more than just a business. it s their family. it s their community. and it s their way of life. lorraine has a long history of steel making and i m third generation also. both of my grandfathers worked in the mill and retired from the mill. my father worked in the mill. steel, as i said before, the history of american steel is the history of the city of lorraine. it s the same thing. one goes hand in hand but we need to look at it not just as history but steel should be our present and it should be our future. you know? the people in lorraine, these guys are resilient. you know? we are hard working people and always have been and we are a people who have made things, you know, with our hands, we are a people who know the meaning of hard work. you know, my family has worked in that mill and my family has been here the same amount of time the steel mill has been here and there is a reason for that. lorraine is a big steel down, an auto town, an
we found the solution then. we had a tariff put into place to make it so everyone on a level playing field. as soon as that happens american steel started to rebound. most plants were under 30% reduction at that point and almost everybody in lorraine laid off and around the country all mills everybody was laid off with few people skeleton crews. now what we are seeing it s exact same situation just six years later and now korea instead of china. we need to look what we did then and do the same thing. reporter: through thick and thin, the steel workers of lorraine, ohio, are proud of what they do and not going down without a fight. until we get people saying your family is as important as mine and mine is as important as yours, we are always going to be in this fight. there brother s family is just as important to mine and mine is as important to his and we are in this fight together and it is
lorraine we grew up. manufacturing is the backbone. u.s. steel won the trade case against the chinese dumping. the steel city of lorraine got a second chance. today, lorraine tubular operations employs 700 workers and has an annual production capability of 780,000 net tons of steel pipe. the expansion of horizontal shale drilling in the united states has fueled a strong command for ocgt steel pipe products over the last few years. it should be lorraine, ohio s chance to shine but their way of life is under attack, yet again. this time, thanks to south korean steel. we saw this just five or six years ago. in 2008, we saw chinese dumping of steel into the united states.