Washington, April 16 (IANS) Angryover import of Indian pipes for a Canada-US oil pipeline, the steel workersunion is trying to galvanise a national outrage over steel imports and raisingsuggestions of protectionism.

Hundreds of sections of importedsteel pipe have been moving into Granite City, Illinois for use in a 1,600-mileoil pipeline from Alberta to Oklahoma being built by Canadian energy giantTransCanada to carry oil to American refineries from Canada’s tar sand fields.

The local steel mill, meanwhile,has been shut since December for lack of orders - the first time in its130-year history - and nearly 2,000 workers are on furlough, the New York Timessaid in a report Thursday titled “Pipe From India Incenses Illinois Town.”

Since a former union officialnoticed the Indian pipes loaded on a passing freight train, the UnitedSteelworkers union has been trying “to galvanize the Granite City story into national outrage oversteel imports, raising suggestions of protectionism in the process,” the Timessaid.

The union and its workers wantsteel pipe for future projects to be made in the United States, creating domesticjobs.

With the economy in tatters, topcorporate executives often state privately that they fear this downturn willfuel public sentiment against foreign-made products, the Times said. “Theimported pipe has inflamed that sentiment.”

The union filed an antidumpinglawsuit in Washington last Wednesday againsttubular and pipe steel imported from China. A day earlier, workersstaged a rally in Granite City, drawing more than 500 people to the same fieldwhere the lengths of “Indian pipe,” as the people in the steel town call them,have been stacked.

The union’s hope is that theIndian pipe episode will provoke a broad outcry, and similar finger-pointing,forcing Congress to tighten trade rules and pressuring companies that importsteel to buy more from domestic suppliers instead, the daily said.

An American mill provided 30percent of the pipe, Canadian mills 23 percent and a giant Indian company,Welspun, the remaining 47 percent, at a low enough price, TransCanada says, tocompete with American-made pipe, even allowing for shipping.

“American and Canadian millswould have gotten more if they had had the available capacity to meet ourrequirements,” said Robert Jones, a TransCanada vice president cited by theTimes.

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Apr 16th, 2009 | By SindhToday |

Source:www.sindhtoday.net