BUTLER, Pennsylvania — On Friday, just hours before United States Steel shareholders approved the sale of the legendary Pittsburgh-based company to Japan’s Nippon Steel, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves stood in front of a packed room of steelworkers at his Butler Works plant and let them know just what he thought of the pending vote.
He also let them know what he thought of shareholders controlling the fate not just of the workers but also the community and, in a larger sense, the country — shareholders who he said had lost any emotional stake they may have once had in all three.
He threw his first salvo at U.S. Steel CEO Dave Burritt, who rejected Cleveland-Cliffs’ proposed $7.3 billion buyout in July, a deal that would have made the combined assets one of the biggest steelmakers in the world and one of the top steelmakers outside of…
