Regulating the restructuring of the US steel industry: Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and pension obligations

The past two decades have seen enormous changes in United States' manufacturing industries. Restructuring of production has greatly affected levels of employment, the volume of productive capacity and the location of work. If these aspects of restructuring are now very well known, less appreciated are the regulatory dilemmas posed by restructuring. Private corporations and public regulatory agencies have become enmeshed in litigation over the design and consequences of restructuring due in part to the fact that restructuring strategies have brought corporations into conflict with fundamental, but competing, public policy interests. The apparent failure of the federal government to develop an explicit industrial policy has only exacerbated these conflicts. Based upon a case study of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of the LTV Steel corporation, and competing claims made in federal court by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the United Steelworkers of America union for status regarding LTV's statutory obligations, it is argued here that restructuring has precipitated an immanent crisis of regulation. At issue are the limits of adjudication in the context of the economic and geographical crisis of the US steel industry.N.B. Professor Clark was based at the Key Centre in Industrial Relations, Graduate School of Management, and Department of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash University, Australia when this paper was first published. The full-text of this article is not available in ORA. Citation: Clark, G. L. (1991).'Regulating the restructuring of the US steel industry: Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code and pension obligations', Regional Studies, 25(2), 135-153. [Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00343409112331346357 ]