In Mood to Put Firm Out of Business Rather Than Grant More Concessions : Steel Workers Going for Broke in USX Dispute

A grim fatalism gripped steel workers’ picket lines and union halls in the gritty Monongahela Valley Monday as the largest labor dispute in the steel industry in 27 years ended its fourth day with little hope of an early settlement.

No negotiations took place or were planned between the USX Corp. and the United Steelworkers of America. The dispute, which the company calls a strike and the union calls a lockout, idled about 22,000 workers in nine states. An additional 20,000 workers under union contract have already been furloughed.

The lines appear bitterly drawn. After surrendering wages and benefits in 1983 to help their beleaguered company survive in an ailing industry, many steel workers now say the current fight may be their last.

Yellow Barricades

Rather than give in to the company’s new demands for wage and benefit concessions, “I’d just as soon lose my job,” said Bob Broskey, 44, a mill operator for 20 years, standing behind yellow barricades at the main gate of the giant Irvin Works steel plant here.

“This is do or die as far as I am concerned.”

At USW Local 2227’s nearby one-story brick headquarters, Ross McClellan, 45, chairman of the local’s grievance committee and a steel worker for 19 years, agreed.

“Our attitude is: Close it down,” McClellan said, meaning permanently closing USX’s steel operations. “We can’t go back to 1937.”

Six miles away, outside the main gate to USX’s sprawling Clairton coke plant, the harsh sentiments were the same.

“If we don’t make a stand here, where’s it gonna end?” asked Daniel MacFarlane, 36, a utility man for 18 years. “I say close it down rather than go back on their terms.”

“Close it down,” Augie Gatto, 52, a burly pipe fitter at the Maple Avenue entrance, agreed. “They want us to go backwards. Everything my dad fought for 50 years ago they want to take away.”

Non-Union Contractors

At issue is the company’s demand that the union give back wages and benefits totaling at least $2 an hour and grant the company greater leeway in hiring contractors not subject to local union contracts. The latter is a particularly bitter pill for union members.

“This is a matter of survival,” said USW Local 1157 President Charles Grese at the union’s dingy Clairton headquarters. “If we don’t stop this contracting, it’s going to be the slow death of this union.”

The firm, which changed its name last month from U.S. Steel Corp., contends that its wage and benefit offer still totals more than $23 an hour, a figure union members angrily dispute.

USX, the nation’s No. 1 steel maker, shut the blast furnaces, coke batteries and other production facilities at its 16 domestic steel mills Friday, refusing to allow workers to continue on the job under the terms of the union’s expiring contract.

In a three-page letter to union members Monday, USX Executive Vice President J. Bruce Johnston said that the company’s proposed wage and benefit package was “among the best in the entire industry, and far above the average for all other manufacturing workers in the United States.”

Company Cites Losses

Johnston said the company has lost $2.5 billion in steel operations since 1980 and is facing “an economic showdown” from rising foreign competition, dwindling domestic demand, non-union competitors and union concessions to other companies.

“A firestorm is raging through the domestic steel industry,” Johnston wrote. “ . . . Only a few basic steel companies may survive. There are not enough seats in the steel lifeboat for everybody.”

The Pittsburgh-based company has laid off more than 15,000 workers and closed more than 100 facilities and its giant Cuyahoga plant in Ohio since 1983, according to spokesman David Higie.

Higie said it is “possible” that some closed plants may not be reopened. “Some plants are more vulnerable than others,” he said. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

Such dire talk is not lost on the men and women holding “lockout” signs under cloudy skies outside USX plants along the winding Monongahela River in western Pennsylvania. Many say the current dispute is more bitter than the last major steel strike, which lasted 116 days in 1959.

Fighting for Jobs

“At least, in 1959, they knew they had jobs to go back to,” said John Guy, 39, a motor inspector at the Irvin plant. “Then, it was more money. We’re fighting for our jobs now.”

Don Baird, 49, president of USW Local 4090, representing office and technical workers at the Irvin plant, said his 47 members will stay out until next year if necessary.

“Over 95% of my members already have earned pensions,” he said. “That’s why we’re so solidified.”

At the Clairton works, which saw its work force cut to 1,000 from 4,500 in recent years, angry union members refused to let anyone except guards and firemen enter or leave the plant. About 175 management personnel are locked in, company spokesmen said. “They have us locked out, so we have them locked in,” said Paul Corey, 37, a mechanic for 19 years. “That’s how you play the game.”

USX Seeks Injunction

USX lawyers will appear in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court at 2 p.m. today to seek an injunction against the union’s Clairton action.

The union charges that the company has threatened to withhold paychecks due today for the last two weeks’ work unless the managers are allowed out.

The union, meanwhile, will ask state courts to rule that it is not on strike but, instead, was locked out by USX. Members thus could qualify for unemployment compensation. That, along with the union’s $200-million strike fund, could finance a long, bitter labor battle.

The dispute involves 59 USW locals in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Texas, Alabama, Utah, Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan.