Furloughed Steelworkers Tell a Bitter Story on Stage

In a bleak union hall, six former steelworkers rehearse a script they wrote about the personal tragedies that accompany plant closures and the decline of America’s manufacturing base.

It is their own story. The men are among 2,000 workers furloughed in 1982 when Bethlehem Steel permanently shuttered its plant in Huntington Park.

It is also the broader story of millions of manufacturing jobs lost, of foreign imports, of a sense of helplessness and of a feeling that the government couldn’t--or wouldn’t--do enough to protect jobs.

Fears for the Future

It is the story of fears for the future, of other generations facing similar wrenching changes.

Cruz Montemayor, in his 60s, was forced into early retirement by the Bethlehem closure and receives a pension of $700 a month. He read from the script for the play entitled “Lady Beth,” in reference to Bethlehem Steel:

“I remember when I heard the news that we were closing down.

“I knew it was coming, ‘cause the foreman had been telling me for months.

“I should have been prepared for the news.

“But . . . it still was a shock.”

Lloyd Andres missed his pension by eight months and receives no retirement benefits. He is unemployed, one of the “displaced workers” in government statistics.

He read:

“The last day.

“I remember, everybody went to work like it was a regular day.

“And then we started tearing everything down.

“We all felt anger and sadness and bitterness.”

9.4% Decline in Workers

Between 1977 and 1984, the number of American workers employed in manufacturing declined by 9.4%, from 20.17 million to 18.28 million, the U.S. Commerce Department reported.

Murray Seeger, the AFL-CIO’s chief spokesman, said manufacturing jobs traditionally have been the highest-paying hourly work in the nation. Those who have been able to find new jobs have had to turn to the lower-paying service sector.

Tony Garcia blames the government for not doing more to stem a flood of lower-priced imported steel. He read from the script:

“The government could’ve helped us a lot, but they didn’t . . .

“That’s what hurt all of us.”

The steel industry was the hardest-hit manufacturing sector, with salaried and hourly employment declining to 201,000 last November from a peak of 509,000 in 1974, according to Father William Hogan, a Jesuit priest and economist at New York’s Fordham University.

“One of the biggest losses, which is permanent, is automotive,” Hogan said, adding that the American auto industry’s appetite for steel has declined to about 13 million tons a year from the 1970s, when it used between 22 million and 25 million tons a year.

Part of that is due to smaller cars, part to using non-metal components, part to imported steel.

The protracted slump in the oil industry has also hurt steel, with the demand for pipes and tubes declining by 50% or more.

“Add up all these factors, and you find the steel industry doesn’t have the market it once had,” Hogan said.

But the hard numbers miss the human side of the story.

Frank Curtis--at 41 the youngest of the six former steelworkers in the play and the only one to have found another job--read from the script with bitterness in his voice:

“It’s just like you read a statistic.

“Somebody reads it and they go, ‘Geez, the unions are losing out.’

“They don’t really know what that means.”

Studies done in the wake of major plant closures have found sharp increases in divorce rates, suicide, and alcohol and drug abuse.

Of the 2,000 laid off by Bethlehem in 1982, an estimated 45% have never found steady employment again, said Frank Cole, who was treasurer of the now-defunct United Steel Workers Local 1845 here.

He works out of the union hall, heading a group called the Steelworkers Old Timers Program that is helping sponsor the play, and for the past few years has been running a food-giveaway program for the needy.

Aid From Drama Teacher

A drama teacher, Susan Franklin-Tanner, has been working with the former steelworkers since 1984, trying to get them to come to grips with their anger by putting their feelings down on paper.

Bits and pieces of the play have been performed before. It received a standing ovation at last year’s AFL-CIO convention in Anaheim.

The full, 50-minute play begins a two-week run March 19 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in Hollywood.