pa1778data.pdf

FART THREE: 1946-1988
U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS
HAER No. PA-115
(Page 28)
Despite the addition of a modern electric furnace and heat-
treating facilities, the Duquesne Works faced permanent shutdown
after World War II because of its antiquated technology.
However, the mill was saved from this fate by the successful
introduction of innovative environmental equipment at its
ferromanganese production facilities. It also provided the
foundation for a massive modernization effort at the mill's
ironmaking, steelmaking, and steelshaping facilities in the 1950s
and early 1960s. This modernization program culminated in the
linking of the Duquesne Works with the National Tube Works in
McKeesport to provide semi-finished steel shapes for National's
tube mills. During the 1970s and 1980s the technological
development of the mill was dominated by the installation of
environmental equipment.
Labor-management relations during the period were marked by
escalating conflicts over the relationship between technology and
work crew size. The high level of intensity that this conflict
created at the Duquesne Works was shared throughout the industry
on both sides of the issue.
The increasing focus on environmental technology also
reflected both the growing concern of the outside community for a
clean environment and its expanding influence over capital
expenditures within the industry to meet regulatory requirement.
In 1984, a depression in the domestic oil industry prompted U. S.
Steel to permanently shut down the mill. Efforts by organized
labor and community-based groups to reopen it were unsuccessful.
Technological Development. 1946-1984
After the end of World War II, the Duquesne Works entered a
period of precipitous decline and was put on standby status
because of aging equipment. The state of disrepair at the fifty
year-old Open Hearth Number One steelmaking shop, for example,
necessitated its complete shutdown in 1949. The mill's fifty
year-old primary mill, moreover, was still powered by steam at a
time when the more efficient and reliable use of electrical power
for such operations had been commonplace in the industry for more
than twenty years. In addition, the capacity of Duquesne f s aging
blast furnaces was quite small by contemporary standards.
Considering these factors, employees should not have been
surprised when they were informed by plant officials during a
company outing at nearby Kennywood Park in the early 1950s that
9, 16, 20, 23, 28, and November 8, 1941; Election results for the
1945 Mayoral election can be found in The Daily Newsf November 6,
1945.