Local steelworkers are waiting to find out the results of a court hearing regarding RG Steel's bankruptcy proceedings and timeline for the company's sale.

Steelworkers said the outcome of Thursday's hearing is crucial to helping the RG Steel more time to find buyers.

Unsecured creditors are filing objections to the sales procedures put forth by a bankruptcy court judge in Delaware when RG Steel LLC first filed Chapter 11. The objections are being filed by 13 groups of unsecured creditors, including the United Steelworkers Union.

"What the complaint said was the time frame for the bids and the sale was too compressed. It would not allow a company to realize the value that was actually in the company," said Jerry Conners, president of USW Local 1223. "They felt that the time frame to allow the bids and the company to be sold during that short period of time would do nothing but benefit the secured creditors."

As of Thursday afternoon, the hearing was still under way.

"It's hard right now. It's very, very hard not knowing day to day whether or not you're going to have a job. Not knowing day to day whether you'll have benefits that you've had for five, 10, 30, 40 years. Insurance, hospitalization, life insurance, sub-pay. There's a lot of things that people take for granted that if this thing goes -- if a buyer is not found -- it could go away," Conners said.

He said the USW hopes that the deadlines are extended.

"We would hope that the process would continue. I think the secured creditors and the lenders don't want that because they would continue having to pay for the company going forward," Connors said.

If the deadlines are extended, that would mean RG Steel's secured creditors and lenders would be paying for a company that right now isn't producing steel.

"The market is down considerably. I know there's been reports in the trades that ArcelorMittal is trying to cut back production capacity in Europe. I know a lot of facilities are on the market," Connors said. "(It) makes it a very troubling time for someone to pick up assets during a market that doesn't look to (have) any reason to add capacity."

Conners said most operations still under way at local RG Steel plants -- like Yorkville -- are just finishing the raw products from the Sparrows Point plant in Maryland.

"We'll ship possibly until the end of July, until the final deadline. But I'm not real sure about that and it depends on that money, too. We may run out of money before we run out of steel," Conners said.

He said Mountain State Carbon, the coke plant in Follansbee, is also still running, but with work reduced.

"It only has the new battery. The old battery is on hot idle (and) Martins Ferry went down," he said.

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