Lucas Kunce Releases Plan to Protect Missouri Jobs and American Industry

In response to law-breaking by Swiss-based ARG International AG in its closure of the Mag 7 aluminum smelter in Marston, Missouri, as well as the takeover bid by Japanese-owned Nippon Steel of U.S. Steel, Lucas Kunce has introduced a plan to revitalize the WARN Act and to put an immediate stop to plant closures and foreign takeovers that hurt working families and threaten America’s defense industrial base. Kunce would file this as legislation on his first day in the U.S. Senate, and he’ll work with any president and any members of Congress to move the proposal forward, regardless of party or personal politics.

Lucas Kunce’s Plan To Revitalize The WARN Act, Stop Plant Closures, Protect Workers, And Take Back American Industry:

• Ban the sale of American companies in strategic industries to any foreign entity.
• Empower the Department of Labor to investigate claims and enforce the WARN Act in cooperation with workers and union representation, including for ongoing claims.
• Introduce criminal penalties for violating the WARN Act that can be recommended by the Department of Labor, with penalties that align with existing penalties for wage theft and other crimes under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
• Expand WARN Act notification requirements to include all full-time and part-time employees, increase lead time for mass layoff or site closure notice from 60 days to 120 days, and update the statute so the requirements under the law apply to any business that employs 50 or more employees.
• Modify the bankruptcy code to prioritize back pay above all other claims in bankruptcy proceedings, and to require employers and owners to give workers the first right to buy a company before other sellers are sought.
• Provide greater access to capital for American-owned businesses and worker organizations to take back ownership of foreign-owned companies in strategic industries.
• Empower the Department of Labor with the Defense Production Act’s authority to prioritize and allocate resources toward the recruitment, training, placement, and retention of workers in strategic industries, and provide specific direction to pursue a pro-worker retooling of America’s aging primary smelters that retains existing jobs.
• Give the Defense Department more authority to block private equity takeovers of suppliers and to take ownership of specialized tooling rights to create competition in monopolistic markets with specialized spare part needs, a power it once had.

The closure of the Missouri-based plant has led to the loss of hundreds of jobs and threatened America’s ability to sufficiently produce aluminum, adding to the growing risk posed by offshoring, our country’s aging primary smelters, and America’s diminished defense industrial base. The proposal by Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel would likewise put the foreign corporation in control of a fourth of American steel production, while also posing a real threat to union jobs and to national security.

America is less safe and American workers are being left behind because Congress has failed to take comprehensive action. Kunce’s plan would both combat future plant closures and take back the jobs lost to the hollowing out of American industry.

“We’ve got too many elected officials acting like this problem started yesterday,” said Kunce. “For years, our politicians have let foreign interests and Wall Street strip states like Missouri for parts, and it’s now an existential threat to our working families and to our country’s ability to defend itself. Whether it’s steel, aluminum, or any other essential component of our defense supply chains, stopping a single sale or plant closure is not enough. Waiting on Congress to invest in just a handful of sectors at a time isn’t enough either. And we’ve seen what happens when we let Wall Street run the show. We need to make shit in this country again, and that requires bold and aggressive solutions to end the closures, to reshore jobs and production, and put America back in first for these industries. In the Senate, I’ll file legislation to put the interests of workers and national security back in charge of how our country organizes our defense industrial base, and I’ll work with any president or members of Congress, from any party, to get it done. It’s time to invest in America, mobilize workers, and rebuild Missouri.” 

Kunce has spent years highlighting the threat to national security posed by corporate consolidation, the offshoring of production, and the aging infrastructure of America’s defense industrial base. Kunce, a 13-year Marine veteran who continues to serve in the Marine Corps Reserve, has played a leading role in efforts to protect domestic production and reshore industrial capacity, both while serving at the Pentagon and as a leader in antitrust and national security policy. His work on these topics has been published by and featured in The American Conservative, ProMarket, The Hill, and The Labor Tribune.

Kunce now is the front-runner on the Democratic side of the 2024 Missouri Senate race and aims to beat Senator Josh Hawley. If union members in Missouri do not vote for Kunce, they will be stuck with two pro-right-to-work-for-less Senators for at least another four years.

Tristin Amezcua-Hogan

Editor at The Labor Beacon

Tristin Amezcua-Hogan is the Editor of The Labor Beacon and a member of LIUNA Local 264. Tristin also serves as the Director of Communications for the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO and the Chair of the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance.

Tristin grew up as the son of a UA Local 669 member in Tecumseh, KS and the great-nephew of George C. Amis, longtime leader of the United Rubberworkers (now USW Local 307) in Kansas. Growing up in rural Kansas as the child of teen parents, Tristin quickly came to appreciate the life-changing benefit of a union job.

Tristin and his partner, Rebeca Amezcua-Hogan, are residents of the Westside, Kansas City, MO's historic Mexican neighborhood. They are proud members of Kansas City's New Reform Temple.