Steelworker Explains Industry’s Collapse

LEROY MCCLELLAND SR., Interview with Bill Barry (2006)

The Sparrows Point plant of Bethlehem Steel outside Baltimore, Maryland, typified the effects of twentieth-century globalization. During the 1950s, the steel plant was the industry’s largest, employing more than thirty thousand men and women and selling steel domestically and around the world. The United Steelworkers union negotiated contracts that helped pull these workers into middle-class comfort. But factors such as technology enhancements and global competition changed everything for the workers, who consequently witnessed their industry collapse. In 2001, Bethlehem Steel sought bankruptcy protection and eliminated its pension liabilities, destroying retirement security for many workers. Here LeRoy McClelland Sr., who worked at “the Point” for forty-two years, describes his experiences and the factors that caused the industry’s decline.

MR MCCLELLAND: Well, now you enter into another part of the change, and that’s technology. When we looked at the safety aspect of it we knew that there were certain procedures that could protect certain things from happening, but with that protection in mind it took technology to put it in place, so that meant a job was no longer necessary. So when you are looking for one issue to resolve another, sometimes you’ve got to take the outcome of it, too. And in our case with technology being advanced and computers and what have you, we’ve had operations that would never ever operate unless you had a person there. Now, that’s not necessary. In fact, it can have a crew — it used to be six people on a mill reduced to three. Why? Computer, and then it advances further on down the road for technology. When that happened, too, you’ve got to understand that the idea of the union was to protect jobs, create jobs, not eliminate jobs. Well, I had the unfortunate experience of being the zone committeeman at the time when a lot of this technology was starting to really grow.

MR. BARRY: When was this?

MR. MCCLELLAND: Well, it really started in 1975, from ’75 on, ’80, ’90s, biggest part being in the ’80s really, the advanced technology. But when these other things started to take place, guys and gals sort of looked at this change coming down, felt hey, that’s a God send, not realizing that when that takes place you ain’t going to be there to see it because your job is going to be gone. So we would have meetings, I would have department meetings up here trying to make that message as clear as I could I guess to soften the idea that hey, we’re going to be losing jobs. That protection that used to be there is not going to be dependable anymore. You can’t defend something that’s no longer necessary, so we had to take these strong measures, and in my case you could find my name on every bathroom shit house wall in Sparrows Point, because I was wanting these guys to — saw the road coming real fast at me and realized technology is going to replace jobs, and if nothing else, gain something from it. So I was sort of accused of selling people for jobs and jobs for job classes, and all that sort of gets caught up in the big mess in itself, but it’s nothing you can do. I mean reality is technology is the future and competitiveness is strong. If you can’t deal with competitiveness, if you don’t have tons per hour and manpower per hour was the way it was, and that’s what had to happen.…

MR. BARRY: How difficult was it for you to learn how to use a computer?

MR. MCCLELLAND: Well, it was a bit of a challenge because everything we did before was pencil and paper, and it was a challenge, and in fact, I didn’t think I would like it, I really didn’t. My wife is the one who really got started on it, and she got it basically for games and then it advanced into other things. I happened to go down the cellar here and we’ve got two computers down there, which I bought one for me, one for her, and I didn’t want to tell her I didn’t know, so I was trying to just ease my way across to get her to show me what these — God, I can use a typewriter, always can use a typewriter, but the keys are — they do different things and you can screw up very easy if you hit the wrong key or be something on the websites, you can really create a problem. So I got down there a couple times, just watched what she was doing. She said, “Well, do you want to learn this?” I said, “I don’t want to learn nothing, just go ahead and do what you are doing,” but I watched her, and one night I went down there by myself and I got on the web and I was so overwhelmed by things that I could get on the web, the web addresses, the e-mail addresses that you can get and the information. I got more information about our politicians, I got more information about what is going on in Annapolis, I got more information on what’s going on in the Senate and the Congress right there firsthand. I don’t have to wait for the newspaper the next day, it’s right there. I can get into every newspaper in this country and get what’s going on and whatever is happening in that country that very day. It just engulfs you, and then the fear of the computer doesn’t exist anymore. And even at work when the transition of computerization took place, we used to take our scrap buckets, big buckets, big bins I should say, and haul them down there and weigh them. We used to have a scale man there. To show you how advanced that got with technology, they eliminated the scale person and they put a scale there, and all you had to do was hit certain buttons, boom, boom, boom, and it would weigh it, it would give you a card in return of what the weight was and you put the box there and the scrap crane come down and dumped it. You put it back to your place and turned in the weight, and it was all computerized, and they simplified it because they had a red key — a monkey could have done it. That’s what they were dealing with, the transition, and with technology also a lot of guys did leave the mill because they were embarrassed, they couldn’t make the mental change from using the keyboard to using the hands on.

MR. BARRY: These were people who were eligible to retire and the technology in effect drove them out?

MR. MCCLELLAND: Yes, absolutely did. And change is tough for anybody. With me, I’m lucky to be able to experience what I did.… [Y]ou and I may not be on this earth, but the generation that does exist, jobs itself, availability, is not going to be here because everything we have done in this country has been an outsourcing and we are outsourcing every day of the week. I mean we’re talking about — here, my daughter who worked 12 years at Hecht’s, it’s no longer a[t] Hecht’s, they bought her out. They give her a buyout or she can go to Macy’s, but I think it’s Macy they are now, she can go there but not where she was originally working at in Whitemarsh. She would be somewhere where they needed her. She is raising a five-year-old. She just can’t jump and go. So that change is brought on. Places like Wal-Mart, Sam’s, Dollar Stores, I mean people don’t realize this is why the economy in this country is going down the tube because we are not exporting anything, we are importing, we are importing more, and when you import, the jobs necessary to make the product isn’t needed here because it’s done outside. Our own steel industry, our steel industry Mitel, now here is a global giant of steel. He has got operations all around the world. Before it’s over with, this person, this family is going to end up absolutely controlling the price of steel, and here America sits when defending this country is going to depend on getting steel from other sorts of the world or other parts of the world. What a challenge that’s going to be. Right now Mitel has shut down operations here. Why? Because he has places around the world. Weirton Steel, they shut down the steel side completely. No way down the road are they going to open, reactivate it. It is over. So that’s one section. And when that character came here, he made it clear that if productivity becomes a problem, then that place is gone, and he ain’t just saying that to threaten them. He said it and meant it, and it’s happening. What I see going to come down here again, and this is just me, this isn’t standing — this is me, my wave length, my tunnel — sometimes tunnel vision, but it turns out that Weirton Steel produces a better tin plate than Sparrows Point. I say — and my son who works there right now, he’s an operator on the halogen lines, I said, “John, don’t be surprised if some of your operations here starts shutting down permanently. Do not be surprised.” Lo and behold there’s no more chrome line down there. Where is it? Weirton. Well, it’s just a matter of time before some of the other operations that used to depend on the tin mill to supply them will not be operating there.

Interview with LeRoy McClelland, Sr., by Bill Barry, May 1, 2006. Transcript at www.sparrowspointsteelworkers.com/interviews/LeRoy_McClelland_Sr.html.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS