pa1778data.pdf

U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS
HAER No. PA-115
(Page 3 6)
pipe. However, when the price of oil dropped precipitously to as
low as $15 per barrel in 1982, the domestic oil industry was put
into a non-competitive position and declined drastically. U.S.
Steel was left with a large tonnage of pipe which could not be
sold. The decline of the domestic oil industry was particularly
devastating for Duquesne, as production dropped to just 40
percent of its capacity by late April. The diminished nationwide
demand for tubular and other steel products continued over the
next two years, prompting corporate officials, in an effort to
recoup losses, to take a big tax write-off on the company's
assets and close a number of mills by the end of 1984. Included
among them was the Duquesne Works which was permanently shut down
in the Fall of 1984.* 9
Technology and Labor, 1946-1984
Between 1946 and 1959 industrial relations at the Duquesne
Works was riddled with strikes. The mill's workforce
participated in the nationwide steel strikes of 1946, 1949, 1952,
1956, and 1959. With the exception of the latter year, these
strikes were conducted in support of union demands for increased
wages and benefits. They resulted in making the steelworkers
among the highest paid industrial workers in the nation.
The 1959 strike, on the other hand, focused on the
relationship between technological development and the job
responsibilities and size of work crews. At issue was the
interpretation of a clause (Section 2-B) which had been first
negotiated between the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) and
the United States Steel Corporation in the collective bargaining
agreement of 1947. Section 2-B protected work practices and crew
sizes that had become embedded in local custom but gave
management the right to change those practices when the 'basis'
for them had been 'changed or eliminated'. Over the next several
years, however, union and management officials could not come to
a common agreement as to what constituted a legitimate reason for
overturning past practices and/or work crew sizes. As a result,
numerous time-consuming and costly grievances were filed foy the
union over the issue. The ambiguity of the clause's language
appeared to be finally resolved by a series of arbitration
rulings in 1953. These policies determined that the company
could change the number of workers on a specific operation
without violating the terms of the contract only by installing
new equipment or technology or otherwise changing the 'underlying
circumstances' of the job. °
49 Hoerr, And the Wolf Finally Camef 137-140; 437-42.
50 Hoerr, And the Wolf Finally Came, 101; 325-26; David Brody,
"The Uses of Power I: Industrial Battleground," Workers in