The World Comes to the Iron Range

In the past, when demand for steel hit the skids, steel makers would slash prices while keeping plants producing at full capacity, hoping to keep income steady in a highly competitive environment. Today, in a marketplace with fewer, more integrated players, companies can cut back on production and hold prices firm.

“I can see benefits of having a more consolidated steel industry,” Tuomi says. “There is a lot more discipline in the marketplace today as far as pricing goes, which means a stronger steel industry, a more profitable steel industry, and a more stable iron ore industry.”

By 2005. the United States' position had slipped to seven, with only 54 million long tons, or 3.5 percent of total world output of 1.54 billion long tons.

Dan Jordan, mining and minerals program supervisor with Iron Range Resources, doesn’t think that “Main Street Mesabi Range” realizes yet that much of the region’s iron ore is foreign owned. “If you asked people on the street, ‘What do you think about foreign ownership of the Iron Range?’, I don’t think they would know what you were talking about,” Jordan says. The people employed in the mines, including management, are still Iron Rangers. Corporate types from ArcelorMittal and Laiwu haven’t been on the Range much because their plants were already up and running. When Essar brings in people from India during the construction phase of Minnesota Steel, foreign ownership will become more apparent, Jordan says.

So how is the average Mesabi Range Main Streeter benefiting so far? The average weekly pay in mining has increased substantially since the depressed market of 2002, says Drew Digby, regional labor market analyst for the Department of Employment and Economic Development’s (DEED) office in Duluth. In 2002, the average weekly pay for someone employed in mining was $995. By 2006, the last full year for which DEED has data, that figure jumped to $1,384. During that time, the number of people employed in the industry has held fairly steady, between 3,600 and 4,000. With the mines busier, Digby says, the jump in pay was likely due to an increase in the amount of overtime put in by miners.