“There's so much history here and a lot of pride that comes with it,” said USW's Bernie Hall, a fourth-generation metal worker. “Without steel, it wouldn't be Western Pennsylvania.”

In December, US Steel completed a $14.9 billion sale to Japanese company Nippon Steel, promising investments to keep its Pennsylvania factories competitive against foreign manufacturers and newer, less environmentally damaging “mini steel mills” in the southern United States.

But Hall, head of the USW's Pennsylvania chapter, said the Japanese company has been coy about specific plans for power plants in the Pittsburgh region, in an area known as the Mon Valley, the first plans for such plants dating back to 1875.

Both President Joe Biden and his challenger Donald Trump have announced plans to cancel the deal as they compete for the labor vote, leaving the transaction likely in limbo at least until after the November election.

At stake are the last remaining steel factories in the Pittsburgh region, which are located just outside the city.

For most Americans, Pittsburgh remains virtually synonymous with steel, partly due to the prominence of the Pittsburgh Steelers American football team.

But the face of the metropolis once known as the “Smoky City” changed fundamentally after the last factories were closed in the 1980s.

Steel “is still part of our identity, but we have disconnected ourselves from that identity,” says former steelworker Edward Stankowski Jr., who in his memoir “Memory of Steel” describes his exit from the industry along with thousands of others in the early 1980s.

Stankowski, whose Pittsburgh home overlooked steel mills, began working in the industry after high school in the 1970s, when many young men saw the profession as a ticket to the middle class, trading hard work in a dangerous environment for good pay and a solid pension.

The property on Pittsburgh's South Side where Stankowski's factory once stood has been redeveloped and now includes apartments called “Hot Metal Flats” and a Cheesecake Factory restaurant.

“I don't miss it,” said Stankowski, who went to university after leaving the steel industry and is now a professor at La Roche University. “I like clean air. I like clean water.”

Western Pennsylvania, a region of waterways and abundant coal reserves, was well suited to the steel industry, but “there has been a fundamental, almost tectonic shift in the geography of the steel industry,” says regional economist Chris Briem of the University of Pittsburgh.

The Mon Valley plants “have been around for a long time,” Briem said. “Unless they get a lot of new capital, they probably won't be competitive for much longer.”

Locals view the renaming of the downtown US Steel Tower to the UPMC building after the region's largest employer, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, as symbolic.

The Edgar Thomson plant in Braddock, once owned by Andrew Carnegie, is one of three factories in western Pennsylvania managed by U.S. Steel, along with a fourth plant in eastern Pennsylvania, in an operation known as the Mon Valley Works.

Nippon has promised to keep the plants open and invest $1.4 billion in USW-represented facilities through 2026, when the current union contract expires. The company has also pledged to keep US Steel's 1,000-employee office in downtown Pittsburgh.

“You can't tell the story of U.S. Steel without Pennsylvania playing a leading role, and Nippon Steel will keep it that way,” Nippon Vice Chairman Takahiro Mori wrote in a June 9 opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

Nippon has indicated that the chances of U.S. approval could increase after November. Supporters of the transaction argue that if the deal falls through, U.S. Steel could be broken up, creating even more uncertainty for U.S. Steel's 3,000 hourly workers in Pennsylvania.

But the USW says Nippon's plans are vague and offer the company a way out of a recession.

“They say they're going to invest in the facilities,” Hall said. “What does that mean?”

Workers want a sign that the Mon Valley operator “is interested in operating these plants long-term and is truly investing in this community,” Hall said. “That's exactly what they're not hearing from Nippon or U.S. Steel.”

Some Mon Valley workers interviewed by AFP criticized the deal as an attempt by US Steel management to make money and expressed fear for their jobs. But others are open to it.

Alex Barna, a machinist at the West Mifflin plant, described himself as “undecided” as he weighs his hopes and concerns. Of Nippon, he said, “Maybe they're in it for the long haul.”

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