As part of a plan to reduce administrative costs, US Steel is planning to lay off 175 non-unionised workers at its Hamilton and Lake Erie plants.

According to Mike McQuade, the newly appointed president and general manager of US Steel Canada, the aim of the lay-offs is to control costs and move the company into “an era of sustained profitability.”

After the lay-offs, the two plants are left with 1,600 unionised employees and 723 non-unionised workers.

According to Jake Lombardo of the local United Steelworkers Union, the ratio between unionised and non-unionised employees at the plants is very high when compared to most steel markets in North America.

The redundancies had been on the cards for some time.