The Region - News from May 7, 1985

About 45 members from the U.S. Steel Workers of America Local 1844 picketed outside a U.S. Steel Corp. annual stockholders meeting, claiming that the firm is closing plants and causing unemployment throughout the nation while increasing investments in South Africa. But corporation officials said that their investments in South Africa consist only of minority holdings in manganese and chromium enterprises. George Cole, finance secretary of the steel workers local in Los Angeles, said that the corporation not only has investments in South Africa but has steel holdings in Japan, Brazil and Italy. “That’s not true,” said Dave Bigler, a spokesman for U.S. Steel. “All of our steel plants are in the United States.” Bigler said that the South African investments are kept only to obtain raw materials for making steel.