U.S. Steel delivers unwelcome Christmas surprise to Michigan town

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The mayor of a Michigan steel town was attending his grandchildren’s Christmas play Thursday evening when he got an unwelcome voicemail from an official of the town’s top employer: United States Steel Corp (X.N). U.S. Steel was about to send out a press release announcing layoffs for 1,545 workers and the idling of a significant portion of operations at the Great Lakes Works facility, according to the voicemail received by Michael Bowdler, mayor of River Rouge, a city of 7,500 that sits on the Detroit River roughly 10 miles south of Detroit. In the voicemail to Bowdler, heard by Reuters, the U.S. Steel official called the layoffs “terrible news” and attributed the decision to weak demand, lower steel prices and new corporate strategy. -- More...