2bits wrote:As long as Unions have the ability to cripple the company that pays their members, I doubt anything of value will be "Made in America" before too much longer. Protecting the workers has turned into a Socialist nightmare that has almost brought America to it's knees too many times (Remember the Steel workers strikes in the 80's ???. That was the beginning of the end of American manufacturing. If things do not get turned around soon we will all be eating with chop-sticks.
I used to be pro buy American, now I buy what I can afford and works well. Made in America does not have the same meaning it used to.
I come from a steel working family and I'm not pro union.
But if you want to know what killed the US steel mills you have to look further than just the Unions, or just the company.
The unions drove prices up, the company rather than spend money to modernize the plants used it for profits. The consumer looked for cheaper and over seas they gave it to them.
One of the major problems making steel is tolerances, the acceptable tolerance of percentage of various chemicals in the steel.
In USA plants we had one standard if the steel didn't measure up it was sent back to the beginning and the process was started over. Very expensive.
In Asia they had three standards. If the steel met the first standard it was shipped to the USA. If it missed the first and hit the second it was shipped to Europe. If it missed the first two and hit the last it was used within the country. So in effect the steel we were calling useless and scraping Asia was selling. Hard to compete with that.
However the major problems were while Europe was using continous casting machines the US was still pouring ingots, reheating them and rolling the steel out.
While Europe was able to have crane operator work 8 hours in the crane we in the US do to Union agreements could only work the man 2 hours on 2 hours off. These guys were paid tonage and in 1965 were making $60,000+ look it up that was top salary in the country for almost any job.
Add to this that Asia had not yet required scrubbers on steel mill furnances to clean up the air while plants in the US were spending billions cleaning up the air and water.
Add to this the fact that a guy who should be working could and did fall asleep on a 2x12 board between two rafters over 20 feet high could not be fired from his job.
Add to this that is was cheaper to keep using the old equipment rather than upgrade as most of Europe had done at the end of the war. Soon we were so far behind in technology we never did really catch up.
Add to this US plants had to hire and pay women the same wages even though they simply could not do the same job. In the open hearths it was common to throw 100 pound bags of various chemicals into the heat to make the type of steel called for. Government equal opportunity made the Steel mill hire women for this job. So in effect there was two employees one to throw the chemicals in and one to meet equal opportunity standards.
So to sit back and point fingers at the company, at the unions, at the government does not do the problem justice. It was a whole tangled web of things that brought down the steel mills.
Incidently I use to live in Johnstown Pa which had the Stoney Creek river running through it. At one time ten miles of the river bank had steel mills on it. Today there is nothing. 50,000 men from that one plant lost their jobs.
Supervisiors, formen, millwrights, electricians, steel pourers, car makers, laborers. All without jobs. 50,000.
I worked summer in the mill and I loved it had my father allowed me after I finished college I would have worked there instead he would not allow them to hire me and I went else where. Steel making was the most exciting place in the world. Something absolutely new almost hourly. Things that could kill you in a instant if you didn't watch your every step. I loved it.
My grandfather, my father, my uncles, my brother, almost all my in laws and almost all my friends and their families worked in the mill some were company and some were union so I think I saw both sides of the story pretty well.