WEIRTON – In the two weeks since Cleveland-Cliffs announced its plans to idle its tinplate operations in Weirton, the community has been rallying around the more than 900 workers expected to lose their jobs as part of the closure.

This week, some of those employees are hoping to rally the community as a reminder of the importance of domestically manufactured tin and other materials.

A rally, dubbed the “Save Weirton Steel USW Rally,” has been planned for 9 a.m. Saturday at the Millsop Community Center.

According to the Facebook event page, “The mill idling will cause all of your canned food, baby food lids, snuff lids and bakeware and other important products to all be manufactured outside the USA! This is a national security emergency! This is why we all need to come together as a community and fight this together and keep jobs in AMERICA!”

In January 2023, Cleveland Cliffs and the United Steelworkers Union jointly filed an anti-dumping and countervailing duty trade case alleging a surge of imported tin product had materially injured the company and its employees. In a ruling, Jan. 5, the U.S. Department of Commerce determined imported products from four of the original eight petitioned countries were being sold in the U.S. at less than fair value. That decision was overruled, though, by a 4-0 vote by the U.S. International Trade Commission on Feb. 6, saying the domestic tin industry was “not materially injured or threatened with material injury by reason of imports” from Canada, China and Germany. An investigation concerning imports from South Korea was terminated by the ITC.

Cleveland-Cliffs, on the morning of Feb. 15, announced its plans to idle the Weirton facility in April, pointing directly to the ITC decision.

“American workers can compete with anyone on a level playing field, but the ITC’s recent negative determination continues to leave our markets vulnerable to foreign dumping. The current tin mill market has already been decimated by over 50% penetration of illegally dumped foreign tinplate product,” said USW International President Dave McCall the day of the Cleveland-Cliffs announcement.

In the days that followed, Gov. Jim Justice pledged to send an economic development task force to Weirton, as well as a quick response team from WorkForce WV to provide personalized training and certification programs in an effort to assist the local workers.