pa1778data.pdf
pa1778data.pdf
pa1778data.pdf
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FART THREE: 1946-1988<br />
U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS<br />
HAER No. PA-115<br />
(Page 28)<br />
Despite the addition of a modern electric furnace and heat-<br />
treating facilities, the Duquesne Works faced permanent shutdown<br />
after World War II because of its antiquated technology.<br />
However, the mill was saved from this fate by the successful<br />
introduction of innovative environmental equipment at its<br />
ferromanganese production facilities. It also provided the<br />
foundation for a massive modernization effort at the mill's<br />
ironmaking, steelmaking, and steelshaping facilities in the 1950s<br />
and early 1960s. This modernization program culminated in the<br />
linking of the Duquesne Works with the National Tube Works in<br />
McKeesport to provide semi-finished steel shapes for National's<br />
tube mills. During the 1970s and 1980s the technological<br />
development of the mill was dominated by the installation of<br />
environmental equipment.<br />
Labor-management relations during the period were marked by<br />
escalating conflicts over the relationship between technology and<br />
work crew size. The high level of intensity that this conflict<br />
created at the Duquesne Works was shared throughout the industry<br />
on both sides of the issue.<br />
The increasing focus on environmental technology also<br />
reflected both the growing concern of the outside community for a<br />
clean environment and its expanding influence over capital<br />
expenditures within the industry to meet regulatory requirement.<br />
In 1984, a depression in the domestic oil industry prompted U. S.<br />
Steel to permanently shut down the mill. Efforts by organized<br />
labor and community-based groups to reopen it were unsuccessful.<br />
Technological Development. 1946-1984<br />
After the end of World War II, the Duquesne Works entered a<br />
period of precipitous decline and was put on standby status<br />
because of aging equipment. The state of disrepair at the fifty<br />
year-old Open Hearth Number One steelmaking shop, for example,<br />
necessitated its complete shutdown in 1949. The mill's fifty<br />
year-old primary mill, moreover, was still powered by steam at a<br />
time when the more efficient and reliable use of electrical power<br />
for such operations had been commonplace in the industry for more<br />
than twenty years. In addition, the capacity of Duquesne f s aging<br />
blast furnaces was quite small by contemporary standards.<br />
Considering these factors, employees should not have been<br />
surprised when they were informed by plant officials during a<br />
company outing at nearby Kennywood Park in the early 1950s that<br />
9, 16, 20, 23, 28, and November 8, 1941; Election results for the<br />
1945 Mayoral election can be found in The Daily Newsf November 6,<br />
1945.