‘Makes me sick to my stomach,’ says laid off Stelco employee responding to CEO | Hanomansing Live

While Ottawa and Cleveland Cliffs try to come to terms on Stelco, those who worked at the steelmaker are still caught in the middle of all this. And I want to bring in one of those people, Mike Watt. He's a steelworker who was recently laid off by Stelco in Hamilton. Mike, thanks so much for speaking with us. We spoke to you shortly after you found out that you were laid off. Now you're hearing David Cochran speaking to the CEO of Cleveland Cliffs. What did you make of it? It's just disgusting. he said it himself he's just out to look after the United States that's they're all it's U.S. steel all over again that's all they're always looking out for themselves and that's it and again i have said it before why did we let him in is the Canadian government do you think putting enough legal pressures on Stelco uh that you want it to happen i want them out it's not i wouldn't have gave them the five days the first time i wouldn't have gave them 15 days i want them out it's better for Canada it's better for Canadian employees at Stelco they need to be taken out of here they don't have good intentions here and that's it i feel like you have um an insider track really on the whole uh the purchasing you mentioned the the U.S. Steel uh ownership and of course that ended in a uh a lawsuit that was settled out of court are you surprised from where you sit to see that this is where things are right now absolutely not we all said this we all called it uh this U.S. deal all over again this guy promised it wasn't going to be and here we are or there's 300 of us out and uh all of us are looking for jobs and it's 2008 all over again there was some talk about uh employment levels going back up at at Stelco are you optimistic about getting your job back i hope so i don't want to have to go somewhere else like it's obvious i i got 21 years here i have a pension here uh i make a good living here i provide for my family for 21 years at Stelco so no i really like i have applied out in Alberta i applied everywhere i do don't want to leave my family but i'd rather be in Hamilton here but if i i gotta do what i gotta do right it did you know i i said off the top you've spoken to us once already about the layoffs and it's not an easy conversation to have particularly at this time uh being laid off is tough and i we do appreciate you you speaking out because so few others have been speaking out publicly about it have you been in contact with others in Hamilton uh who have also been hit by this wave of layoffs a few guys i i talked to on a frequent basis yes and how are they doing they're okay they're they're at the point the same point i'm at is the complete frustration on our on uh Jolene doing a lot of good i think now uh i just think you need to push them out uh so i mean you sort of are hinting at this or maybe saying it directly but what what message specifically do you want the minister to tell Cleveland Cliffs on behalf of the workers i mean at this point it appears this is headed to court sell it to the government i i don't care how they do it or what they have to do nationalized steel here in canada stop offloading uh steel from other countries let's do it i've said it before let's do it in our own backyard let's make canada great trump can go off and say whatever he wants to say about can uh u.s make it great well let's make canada great let's do our own steel in our own backyard michael just curious um you know you obviously are following the ups and downs of the the government the the interview that david just did with the the ceo are are others your your your colleagues who have also been laid off are they they paying close attention to this is it is it too much for them what's that what's the mindset of those who you've worked with no I'd like I was at my girls basketball game today and a few of the guys reached out and did I read the news that I see the big update and I had to go on social media today to figure out what was actually said because it's actually getting I'm getting sick to my stomach with the garbage that's coming out of this guy's mouth sick to my stomach like I don't know how much more blatant this guy has to be about who he's looking out for and what his intentions are like i said it's u.s steel they did it before they shut down our steel plant one of the newest steel plants in all of uh north america built in 1987 and u.s steel shut it down this guy came in in 2024 and he's doing the same thing all over again mike once again really appreciate your time and your perspective on this It's an important one. Mike Watt, thank you.