print this page

USW Moves to Block Wheeling-Pitt/CSN Transaction

For Immediate Release                                            August 14, 2006

PITTSBURGH, PA — The United Steelworkers will use every means at the Union’s disposal to oppose the proposed transaction between Wheeling-Pittsburgh Corp. (Nasdaq:WPSC) and CSN – Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (NYSE:SID), the USW announced here today.

In a letter delivered to the company today, David McCall, director of USW District 1 and the union’s chief negotiator with Wheeling-Pitt, informed James Bradley, Chairman, President and CEO of the company, that “the Steelworkers Union is filing a grievance in order to rectify the Company’s egregious violations of the Right to Bid provisions of our labor agreement.”

The USW’s agreement with Wheeling-Pitt provides the Union with the right to organize a transaction in the event the Company decides or is presented with an offer to sell the Company. Until the Union is given the same period of time given to other parties, the Company may enter into no contracts regarding a potential sale.

Wheeling-Pitt “breached our contract when it accepted CSN’s offer,” McCall said, adding that the Company’s contention that the USW must present a competing transaction by September 8, 2006, is “completely without merit.”

In fact, the union letter asserted, “Even the most conservative reading