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State in running for Nucor plant
Friday, September 17, 1999 By Len Boselovic, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Will one of America's most admired steelmakers find a friend in Pennsylvania?
Nucor, of Charlotte, N.C., is considering Pennsylvania and two other Northeast states as sites for a $50 million steel plant that would employ more than 300.
Chairman H. David Aycock said the nation's largest nonunion steel producer is looking at sites in eastern Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. The plant would produce steel joists and girders as well as steel deck, used in floors and roofs in industrial and commercial construction projects.
"Any of those sites would be a good location to serve the market we want to serve," Aycock said.
Nucor is the largest U.S. producer of joists and steel decks. It has plants in Indiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Nebraska, Texas and Utah. The steelmaker isn't considering sites in Western Pennsylvania because customers here can be served by the Indiana plant, Aycock said.
The company hopes to select a site within three months. It would take another six months to secure the required permits and approvals for the plant and 10 more months to build it, Aycock estimated.
Nucor had 1998 profits of $263.7 million on sales of $4.2 billion. It shipped more than 9.6 million tons of steel last year, second only to U.S. Steel. In addition to construction products, the company makes sheet steel, steel bars, fasteners, bearings and metal buildings.
For years, Nucor has been the yardstick by which other steel producers are measured. Quick to embrace new technology and using incentives to motivate its nonunion workers, Nucor became a star in an industry loaded with substandard performers. It has turned a profit every year since 1966 and has increased its dividend every year since 1973, when it instituted the payout.
But Nucor's reputation has dimmed in recent years. Its ability to commercialize new technology was called into question after it pulled the plug on a West Indies iron carbide plant that failed to live up to expectations. Then in June, Vice Chairman and President John D. Correnti resigned following a dispute with Aycock over the future of the company.
Bidding among the three states for a profitable employer like Nucor is bound to be intense, despite its troubles. Aycock said Pennsylvania officials have briefed the company on what kind of assistance is available, but insisted "that's not the most important thing."
State officials met with Nucor executives in July in Charlotte, said Steve Morgan, spokesman for the state's Department of Community and Economic Development.
Nucor's interest in the Northeast also may attract the attention of the United Steelworkers union, which has never organized a Nucor plant. Its production and maintenance workers are paid weekly bonuses based on their productivity, with the bonus accounting for 80 to 150 percent of their base pay. Bonuses are typically a much smaller component of the paychecks of steelworkers covered by USW contracts.
The possibility of the union trying to organize workers at the plant didn't concern Aycock.
"We really haven't thought much about it," he said. "We have plants in union territory."
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