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WEIRTON - Amid reports that ArcelorMittal plans to cut jobs in 2010, United Steelworkers Local 2911 President Mark Glyptis said Tuesday the corporation's Weirton tin mill plans to call 10 employees back to work at the first of the year.

According to Glyptis, 10 employees of the Luxembourg steelmaker's Weirton plant are on involuntary layoff status. He said the union's recent contract negotiations with ArcelorMittal call for all of those workers to return.

Glyptis said pending passage of a physical, those employees likely will be back on the job by the first week of January.

Company officials on Tuesday announced ArcelorMittal will cut an unspecified number of jobs next year and stick with plans to use 70 percent of its capacity in the current quarter.

The steelmaker plans to cut jobs through attrition and "optimization of production," spokesman Bill Steers said in an e-mail.

The Luxembourg-based steelmaker hasn't decided about production beyond this year, he said.

The Wall Street Journal, citing unidentified sources, reported this week that ArcelorMittal would use 70 percent of capacity for four more years and planned about 10,000 job cuts worldwide, with most likely to occur in Europe and the U.S.

Glyptis, however, questioned the accuracy of that report.

"I'm not even sure if that's an accurate article that was put in" the Wall Street Journal, said Glyptis. "I'm in constant contact with other union presidents and, to my knowledge, there isn't any kind of significant job cuts being talked about within the organization."

Glyptis added that he doesn't see any involuntary layoffs in Weirton's immediate future.

"As far as any involuntary layoffs, there isn't any discussion on that at this point. There has been some discussion on voluntary layoffs," he said. "From time to time, that happens."

Glyptis said the tin mill's yields and delivery performance "are at all time highs," and Weirton steelworkers remain focused on becoming one of the world's premier tin producers.

"As we attain that status, that's going to improve our job security," Glyptis noted. "People have gone through so much, but I think we're in for a good 2010."

Dave McCall, District 1 director for the Pittsburgh-based United Steelworkers and chairman of the bargaining committee with ArcelorMittal, said the union has received no layoff notices from the company. Nor does it expect "any kind of mass layoff" with the strong U.S. market, he said.

"Ours is the strongest steel market in the world. Even at the height of the recession, we were consuming 70 million tons of steel per year," McCall said. "In 2010, we expect demand to be 90-100 million tons. That's 100 percent of what it was in 2007."

ArcelorMittal is also restarting its bar mill in Indiana Harbor, McCall said, "and they're going to need to either recall or hire 150-200 employees for that."

The USW represents about 14,000 U.S. employees of ArcelorMittal, which has major steelmaking operations in East Chicago and Burns Harbor, Ind.; Weirton; Cleveland, Ohio; Sparrows Point, Md.; Steelton, Pa.; Georgetown, S.C.; and Riverdale, Ill. It also owns finishing plants and iron ore and coal mines.

Glyptis, whose union represents about 1,000 of ArcelorMittal's American work force, said non-union management recently reorganized its staff, resulting in the elimination of a dozen management positions.