betrayal of workers' loyalty,it happened on Ronald Reagan's watch.) I don't know much about Alumisource, but I do know that the coke plant portion of the old steel mill is operated today by ArcelorMittal, is manned by United Steelworkers, and is fueling steel production (not scrap processing) in Cleveland. The Clinton campaign should counter by pledging continued bipartisan efforts to protect today's steel-producing jobs from foreign dumping.
Long ago I twice belonged to the United Steelworkers union, including a summer at Monessen's coke plant. Some memories about times that will never return:
There were about 14 of us college students hired for that summer. (Probably everyone had some connection. My connection was that my Dad served in the Air Force Reserve with the Human Resources manager for the steel mill.) We were hired to replace about 7 regular workers (including union leaders) who had been dismissed for organizing a work slow-down. I was worried that the year-round workers would resent this. But one of them assured me it was not a problem. An eventual ruling would reinstate the dismissed workers with back pay (he was right about that). In the meantime, they got the summer off, we had jobs, and the union had made the point that more workers were needed to safely satisfy production goals. I'm not sure it wasn't a game that all sides were playing all along.
There was extra pay (about 40 cents per hour) for laboring on top of the coke ovens. Staying cool up there meant moving fast, and I wasn't good at that. But on hot humid days, the older guys would decide that job wasn't worth it. So it passed down to the guy with the lowest seniority. Hot humid days outside here in Tucson feel like those days on top of the coke ovens, except that here there is always air-conditioned comfort to look forward to inside.
I was working the evening that Richard Nixon delivered his resignation speech. We were taking a scheduled break, in a space at the center of the coke-oven batteries. There was a radio. The music stopped, and a news special report was being introduced. One of the regular workers, a younger guy not much older than me at the time, looked at his watch and noted that it was time to get back to work. He was right. But the crew chief saw my disappointment and said,
No, this is important. We have to listen to the beginning of this.So we listened to the first few sentences of the speech, and then got back to work.
I imagine that the guy who was looking at his watch may be voting for Trump in November. But his wife will be voting for Hillary.
