WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seventy-four-year-old Manuel Katz, a retired
steelworker from Aliquippa, does not get around a lot, the
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports. He is on about 10 different
types of medication and, like most people his age who have spent
decades working long and hard, endures lots of aches and pains.
But nothing would have kept him away from the nation’s capital on Thursday, where he and thousands of other steelworkers, along with dozens of politicians, labor leaders and industry executives gathered, within shouting distance of the Oval office, to remind President Bush of the commitment he has made to the American steel industry.
Katz, who began his career in 1947 at Aliquippa’s now defunct Jones & Laughlin steel mill, faces a situation typical among many workers at the rally. He has pension and health care coverage through LTV Corp., which acquired the old Jones & Laughlin Steel.
But now, because LTV is bankrupt and is liquidating its assets, Katz said he will lose his healthcare coverage and may lose a good part of his pension.
“I would be in real trouble if I were not old enough to get Medicare,” Katz said while standing on the Ellipse, just across from the South Lawn of the White House.
Steelworkers at the rally traveled from as far away as Provo, Utah, and Minnesota’s Iron Range. They want Bush to slap 40 percent tariffs on imported steel for the next four years. Anything less will fail to turn around the relentless string of bankruptcies brought on by a world glut of steel and low prices, they say.
Bush faces a March 6 deadline on whether to impose tariffs. However, Bush is likely to reject a recommendation that he impose 40 percent duties on steel imports and turn down an industry bid for as much as $12 billion in aid, an unidentified senior administration official said yesterday. Bush is weighing alternatives such as lower tariffs or “tariff-rate quotas,” which allow limited duty-free imports, the official, who asked to remain anonymous, told reporters on a conference call.
No matter what he decides, the president is certain to displease many. Opponents of the tariffs include many of the industries that buy steel and operators of the country’s large ports, where business has flourished because of shipments of foreign steel.
There was little subtlety, though, about pressuring Bush, who, at a gathering near Pittsburgh last summer, called steel production a matter of both of jobs and national security.
“Now is the time, Mr. President, to live up to the promise that you made.” Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, told the crowd. “A promise half kept has not been kept at all,” Rockefeller continued, followed by roars.
Bush won West Virginia, one of the country’s most Democratic states, in the hotly contested 2000 election. Without that win, he would have lost the election to Democrat Al Gore.
There also was no subtlety about the political implications of Bush’s decision, whatever it turns out to be.
“We have reawakened the industrial heartland, the so called battleground states,” said United Steelworkers of America President Leo Gerard to a crowd filled with people from vote-rich but politically fickle states like Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
In the past three years, some 31 steel companies have declared bankruptcy and thousands in the industry have lost work. Many of those still on the job have agreed to make do with less.
Mike Roth, a 26-year-old machinist at the Wheeling-Pittsburgh steel mill in Steubenville, Ohio, has taken cuts in pay and benefits, as have many of the company’s executives.
“It’s all to keep the business going,” he said. “In that small valley, steel is the only thing there is.”
Roth, however, expressed doubt about whether the president will approve the 40-percent tariff the industry wants. “I think we’ll be lucky to get 20 percent.” Executives and workers alike proudly state that this country’s industry is the world’s most efficient and cleanest. Steel is not, they say, a business that is suffering because it has become outmoded. The industry’s problems are the result of a playing field that is not level.
“We have set every production record in the book,” said Mike Barnes, who has worked for 26 years as a millwright at U.S. Steel’s Gary Works in Indiana. Barnes spent 15 hours traveling to he nation’s capital.
When Barnes started working at Gary Works in the 1970s, the mill had 24,000 employees. “Now there are 7,000 people working there, and we are making more steel,” he said.
Those involved in the steel industry deny they are looking for a bailout or special treatment, as some opponents of the tariffs have alleged.
“We don’t want protection,” said Tom Usher, the chairman and chief executive officer of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corp. “What we want is justice — we want the law enforced.”
Usher feels said he feels vindicated by the International Trade Commission’s ruling in favor of tariffs. And he expressed confidence in Bush.
“He knew we were getting screwed,” said Usher, who was dressed like a banker but spoke with the passion of a labor activist.
In many cases, workers at the rally seem to be defending a way of life as much as jobs.
“We are standing up for our communities by standing up for steel,” said Keith Littler, who lost his job of 28 years when the LTV Steel Mining plant in White Lakes, Minn., closed last year.
Now, Littler, who has lived his whole life in Minnesota’s Iron Range, has lost his healthcare coverage and may lose part of his pension.
There was also a sense of betrayal among some at the rally, who believe they have always worked hard and acted with honor.
“My company has supported its retirees for 20 years, which has been very hard to do,” said John Nelson, a quality assurance supervisor at the Bethlehem Steel Corp.’s plant in Steelton, just south of Harrisburg.
Bethlehem Steel, which declared bankruptcy last year, has 13,000 employees and 130,000 retirees.
“The company has paid retiree pensions and health care for years and just can not handle it any more,” said Nelson, who is not a union member.
“Bethlehem is a decent company, not something like Enron, which has ruined most its employees retirements by lying to them,” he said.