Weirton Steel Corporation filed for Chapter

Eleven bankruptcy protection today.

Weirton's determined workers had been holding on while a

five-year import crisis took down dozens of competitors.

The small, employee-owned company helped focus attention on the

plight of the domestic steel industry and helped persuade President

Bush to impose a protective three-year tariff plan.

Still, the nation's sixth-largest integrated steel maker and

Number Two producer of tin could not turn the tide, racking up more

than seven-hundred (m) million dollars in losses over five years.

Weirton President and C-E-O John Walker says the company has

obtained a 225 (m) million dollar financing package that will keep

the mill operating while it reorganizes.

Independent Steelworkers Union President Mark

Glyptis says Weirton Steel's bankruptcy filing today was

unnecessary and avoidable.

Glyptis says senior management officials -- quote --

''effectively gave up and conceded defeat.'' He added that Weirton

Steel workers won't give up.

The union had helped Weirton President and C-E-O John Walker

trim 38 (m) million dollars, approving a one-year contract in

February that cut pay five percent, canceled a planned raise and

froze accrued pension benefits.

Walker planned to save another 34 (m) million dollars by asking

the 36-hundred active employees and some 46-hundred retirees and

dependents for health care givebacks.

But retirees had been slow to embrace the request that they help

cover health insurance costs with a two-hundred dollar monthly

deduction from their pension checks. They also faced higher

co-payments for prescription drugs and doctor visits.

Weirton Steel is seeking court approval to create a committee of

retirees to address the pension issues.

Combined, the contract and health care changes would have saved

the company 72 (m) million dollars.