>>You idiots devastated Pittsburgh and lost your jobs as well, all for greed. <<
Although I'm not necessarily a fan of Unions, I take exception to this statement.
I grew up in Pittsburgh area and my 1st job was for a company that makes equipment that supports the petro chemical industry that includes oil companies. In the late 70's I worked in Donora, PA (home of Joe Montana and a few other greats) as an Industrial Engineer. Our plant made the base plate systems that supported large equipment for field equipment mainly going to Saudi Arabia and Oman. We bought a lot of steel for use in that FAB process. We used to get our product locally from the mills. We would get "I" beams that were 40-50 long that looked like King Kong had used them first. They were warped and caused a great amount work to get them to fit into our plans. Our buyer got a deal once on some product from Japan. I went to look at it when it came in, the "I" beams were perfect. When you laid them out on the shop floor, the WEB was flush with the floor for the entire distance. They saved us a ton of man-hours in building our products. We never bought locally again; they were given the opportunity but just couldn't match the quality of the Japanese steel.
Now was the poor product from the local mills the fault of the Union Worker's? Naw, maybe 10 %. I'd bet there were a few union guys' that would complain about quality but ultimately the quality program is management's responsibility.
Was it all management's fault? Yes and no. You have to remember where we were in the 60's and 70's. The auto industry was the dominant industry of the US in the 60's, essentially they could sell what they made around the world because the rest of the world was still recovering from WWII. The dominant management theory of that era was not focused on quality. The auto industry and the steel industry were essentially linked to each other because of the amount of steel that auto makers used dictated a common vision for both industries.
Meanwhile Edward Deming went to Japan in the early 60's to teach the Japanese how to continuously improve their products. Deming was embraced by all of Japan industry, and his theories were instituted and worked. They started making quality cars for their people that met their needs, smaller and more fuel-efficient. When the oil embargo of the early 70's that US manufacturers were starting to be seriously hurt by Japanese sales. This impacted steel sales as well. Japan had new plants (thanks to us) and better quality product, it wouldn't take long until US companies would suffer.
What could US manufacturers do? They started to embrace the same quality programs that Japan did. But it was too little too late for some of the steel giants. Stuck with aging equipment, and the need to modernize vs. lower sales made it extremely difficult to succeed. Unions are squeezed in these situations. Management comes down and request concessions in order to create the capital necessary to modernize. The unions, with a built-in distrust of management are unwilling to give up much. Now there's a bigger rub, as US companies modernize their plants they become more efficient which further compounds the problem, Companies are forced out of business because of overcapacity, so in the case of steel companies its a case of damned if you do damned if you don't, modernize and force other union worker out of a job. Don't modernize and everyone is looking for new work. It's a tough situation. I support a system where union and management work together in a strategic business arangement but there is still a lot to overcome between the 2 groups.
Bottom line, it was the 70's demise of the US auto industry and quality problems that killed Pittsburgh steel businesses, not unions.
My 2 cents worth.
P.S.- Deming gave the US industry plenty of opportunity to adopt his ideas in the 50's with no success.
P.S.S. I chose not to even discuss the rising environmental movement of that time frame but it also had a negative impact to the health of the steel industry.
Jim |
