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AK Steel issues notice to temporarily idle portions of Ashland Works

AK Steel, West Chester, Ohio, has issued a notice under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act to hourly and salaried employees at its Ashland Works in Kentucky that it intends to temporarily idle the blast furnace and related steelmaking operations at the facility as a result of challenging domestic market conditions.

The company said it has appropriate steelmaking capacity at its other plants to meet customer requirements and does not expect any interruptions in shipments to its customers. The firm does not intend to idle the hot-dip galvanizing line at Ashland Works that primarily services automotive customers.

"We are taking this necessary step due to the onslaught of what we believe are unfairly traded imports of carbon steel that have been flooding our shores. These imports have substantially reduced order intake rates, production rates, shipment volumes, and selling prices," said James L. Wainscott, chairman, president, and CEO.

AK Steel, along with other domestic steel companies, has filed antidumping and countervailing duty trade cases with the International Trade Commission with respect to coated, cold-rolled, and hot-rolled carbon steel products in an attempt to combat these foreign imports.

The WARN begins a 60-day period that must be given before idling operations and laying off employees under the WARN Act. If market conditions do not improve, the idling of the affected portions of the facility is expected to begin in mid-December 2015 and could last more than six months.

Ashland Works produces carbon steel slabs, along with hot-dip galvanized and galvannealed coated steels. The plant employs about 940 people.