No 1959 Steel Strike, how does the Steel Industry and Organized Labor in the Rust Belt fare?

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Deleted member 145219

Suppose that the Eisenhower administration stops the 1959 Steel Strike almost immediately; citing the vital importance of that industry to the nations defense. So as a result the real life 116 Day shutdown of the American Steel Industry is prevented. Preventing or at least pushing back the mass importing of Foreign steel.

How does the American Steel Industry fare without the 1959 Steel Strike? To what extent does the Rust Belt decline along with Organized Labor?

 

marathag

Banned
Still after the recession of '57-58. where Steel demand was lower. But the main problem of the existing Steel plants themselves.

The Steel Companies didn't want to replace the 1910-1920s era Bessemer Plants with the new basic oxygen process plants that were developed after WWII.
After all, they had won both World Wars with those plants, why upgrade? New plants cost money.

Now West Germany and Japan, they weren't shackled with the old technology plants. They were destroyed in the War
They had to start fresh, and there was no reason to build the old style plants, when the new basic Oxygen process plants was far more efficient, fewer workers but made cheaper, and higher quality steel.

By time the 1970s roll around, they just can't compete, so the Steel Unions and Steel Plant Owners, just delayed the inevitable by requesting tariffs and outright limits on the import of higher quality, lower cost steel . Now South Korean Steel was starting to do to Japan, even cheaper and just as good, with China just around the corner, with improved relations after Mao was gone

So even without the Strike, still run into the problem that US Steel costs too much, and much was of lower quality and not the newer more desired alloy types. So the old plants are shuttered, Unionmen laid off.

But at this point, new US Plants were opening using the new methods, so actually US steel production didn't totally drop off, but still was more expensive, so imports continued to take market share, as US demand for Steel kept increasing after the 1970s Economic shocks

y1wI4FRwM-JRg9BpkKChLBlfn4C2PXzOeNMvu-aBmUo.jpg
 
It might be easier if some people decide to start new steel production somewhere else in the US than actually getting the original places to change but I am unsure.
 
It might be easier if some people decide to start new steel production somewhere else in the US than actually getting the original places to change but I am unsure.
I thought the same thing. Maybe Alabama tries to get Birmingham to do this but with the race issue being such an issue and unions not being well liked down south, would it work? Could US steel just say screw you and build plants in say Birmingham and Chattanooga and Atlanta and basically just operate without unions and bend to segregation?

Or might a place like Pueblo Colorado or Salt Lake City or Denver want to attract such industries to Be close to iron mines? Or maybe even Iowa and have railroads bring Minnesota Iron Ore to Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Davenport, Des Moines or Sioux City if feasible? Seems like that’s all unlikely.
 
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Maybe somewhere in Texas? Galveston does have a port so if they need to import iron they could.

Also the south has industry because the lack of unions since it's cheaper and you can abuse your workers without the same repercussions. As for segregation it's not like the north was known for being that progressive since the area did have several riots due to the large number of African Americans moving there to work.
 

Deleted member 145219

It might be easier if some people decide to start new steel production somewhere else in the US than actually getting the original places to change but I am unsure.
What about building new plants, but along the Great Lakes?

US Steel, under Edgar Speer, proposed to do this, recognizing that only so much new capacity could be added to existing plants. Bethlehem Steel had built their Burns Harbor works in the 1960's as well.


 
What about building new plants, but along the Great Lakes?

US Steel, under Edgar Speer, proposed to do this, recognizing that only so much new capacity could be added to existing plants. Bethlehem Steel had built their Burns Harbor works in the 1960's as well.


That's what I'm thinking. That or maybe find states that are close to iron ore but are right to work states. I myself thought Iowa could as its next to Minnesota, thought its a long train trip from Duluth to Des Moines or any other city. Granted, maybe if John Deere got behind it and had enticed steel plants to places like Waterloo (where John Deere makes its tractors) it might work. Maybe places like Utah or Wyoming could do it, but you'd need good rail and truck transport.
 

marathag

Banned
That's what I'm thinking. That or maybe find states that are close to iron ore but are right to work states. I myself thought Iowa could as its next to Minnesota, thought its a long train trip from Duluth to Des Moines or any other city. Granted, maybe if John Deere got behind it and had enticed steel plants to places like Waterloo (where John Deere makes its tractors) it might work. Maybe places like Utah or Wyoming could do it, but you'd need good rail and truck transport.
You need Coal as well as Ore, and the Wyoming mines didn't out produce the Eastern mines till the 1990s.
 

Deleted member 145219

That's what I'm thinking. That or maybe find states that are close to iron ore but are right to work states. I myself thought Iowa could as its next to Minnesota, thought its a long train trip from Duluth to Des Moines or any other city. Granted, maybe if John Deere got behind it and had enticed steel plants to places like Waterloo (where John Deere makes its tractors) it might work. Maybe places like Utah or Wyoming could do it, but you'd need good rail and truck transport.
A lot of the mini mills that utilized Electric Arc furnace's were actually operated by non union companies across the country, such as Nucor.

If preventing the 1959 Steel strike only pushed back the decline of the blast furnace based American steel industry by 20 - 25 years, I'd accept that.

 
My limited understanding from osmosis living under a US Bessemer steel plant*1 that went under in the 1980s was that arc is fine for secondary but not primary. Admittedly when the government told us no renewal was happening (because they renewed the other Bessemer that was newer*2) I didn’t continue the basic interest so semi refined ores and bos don’t make organic sense because we had the blast and then in the specialist steels plant the arc.

So I guess renewal involves captive electorates, undercutting more expensive processes, green fields sites, and government control or government/syndicate government/zaibatsu funding.

*1 Newcastle, Au. Built to keep unemployed miners voting labour and to under cut the Lithgow finings works
*2 Port Kembla, Au. Built because the fibers just kept striking.
 
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when the government told us no renewal was happening (because they renewed the other Bessemer that was newer*2) *2 Port Kembla, Au.
Okay, so this pertains to Australia. But I think the same argument applies to the U.S. — namely, that this is essential industry, important to national defense, worth some taxpayer subsidy.

And I don’t think that’s something just said to hoodwink citizens. I think that line of reasoning has a lot of truth and validity to it.
 
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You need Coal as well as Ore, and the Wyoming mines didn't out produce the Eastern mines till the 1990s.
Well, there goes that idea then. At least for now. Also, back to Iowa, they did have a coal industry , but no ore, and if I recall correctly, the mines in Southeast Iowa didn't mine the coal good for steel mills.
 
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A lot of the mini mills that utilized Electric Arc furnace's were actually operated by non union companies across the country, such as Nucor.

If preventing the 1959 Steel strike only pushed back the decline of the blast furnace based American steel industry by 20 - 25 years, I'd accept that.

What's funny is that Nucor has a big plant near where I went to college. Norfolk NE has a decent plant.
 
A lot of the mini mills that utilized Electric Arc furnace's were actually operated by non union companies across the country, such as Nucor.

If preventing the 1959 Steel strike only pushed back the decline of the blast furnace based American steel industry by 20 - 25 years, I'd accept that.


Averting one strike isn't going to keep the 1950's utopia going another 20 years. It won't keep it going another hour. The essential problem was that in 1973 the price of energy of all kinds went up and the demand for many good went down. At that point instead of new European and Asian production simply going to meet new demand suddenly you had everyone fighting over a shrinking/stagnant pot. And at that point old plants with expensive workers are going to be outcompeted. Averting one strike might make the post 1973 collapse a bit gentler but the trend line isn't really up for debate. As to the idea that has been discussed upthread and in a million other threads on this board about the US adding new plants during the good years of the 50's and 60's is while that might* save the US's share of international steel production it's not going to save those Rust Belt plants and the communities built around them.

*I question whether it would because a world in which the US government subsidises the steel industry to the point that US made steel, made with expensive American workers (even Southern states have higher wages than most of Asian and Europe), is price competitive in Asia and Europe with Asian and European steel is a very different world. If the US started behaving like that it's only going to result in trade barriers being put up and once shut out of international markets US production will shrink to match US demand, rather than the 1950's status quo of the US being a major steel exporter.
 

marathag

Banned
Well, there goes that idea then. At least for now. Also, back to Iowa, they did have a coal industry , but no ore, and if I recall correctly, the mines in Southeast Iowa didn't mine the coal good for steel mills.
No real technological reason to not use the Wyoming Coal sooner, just demand wasn't there.
So since you want Iowa--
'If you build it, the Coal will come'

So say it's 1950s, and my favorite maker of Macguffins and Deus ex Machina personified, Howard Hughes, decided that he needs better steels for the aviation division.
He decides that he can build a new basic oxygen mill near Mason City, in northcentral Iowa.
They have two cement plants that are already taking in good amounts of Coal from the railroads, that Mason City is the hub of seven different lines.
Nearby, large amounts of Limestone is mined for Cement, and the plants are near the Winnebago River.
So Water, Limestone, Coal and transport links are already in place. All that is needed is Taconite from the MN Iron Range.
HH buys one or both cement plants, and has plans to build a steel mill nearby.
For workers, Iowa does have strong unions, but has been a Right to Work State since 1947.
 
The steel companies didn't want to replace the 1910-1920s era Bessemer plants with the new basic oxygen process plants that were developed after WWII. After all, they had won both World Wars with those plants, why upgrade? New plants cost money.
The unions wouldn't have liked it either. Basic oxygen steelmaking requires massively fewer man-hours per ton produced than older Bessemer or open-hearth methods, so as long as the companies were making decent profits I'd expect them to fight its introduction tooth and nail.


It might be easier if some people decide to start new steel production somewhere else in the US than actually getting the original places to change but I am unsure.
IIRC Wisconsin Steel in Chicago had an independent union separate from the United Steelworkers of America. Perhaps a smaller steelmaking firm sees a gap in the market, convinces a less militant union, and invests in BOS – or at least AJAX – under the idea that they'll be able to capture enough market share to balance out the reduced man-hours.
 
Possibly Bethlehem Steel could opt out of residential real estate a decade earlier and demolish the town of Sparrows Point, MD, expanding its plant onto the old town site with newer technology. Of course, that would mean I would have grown up elsewhere from about age 8 on.
 
Looking at things it seems that Wisconsin Steel, owned by International Harvester, didn't take part in the 1959 strike due to its workers belonging to a different union, and I think there were some of the other smaller companies as well – sometimes referred to as 'Small Steel' to differentiate from 'Big Steel'.

The American steel industry seems to have been something of a mixed bag in that you had companies like McLouth Steel up in Michigan introducing BOS in 1954, Interlake Steel and Wisconsin Steel introducing in the early 1960s, US Steel introduced it at their South Works in 1967 or 1968, and Bethlehem Steel built Burns Harbor with it by 1969, but at the same time open hearth steelmaking also survived. In some cases that might have been for technical reasons, but I don't think the industry can be faulted with lack of technology or investment as the sole reason for its problems.
 
Still after the recession of '57-58. where Steel demand was lower. But the main problem of the existing Steel plants themselves.

The Steel Companies didn't want to replace the 1910-1920s era Bessemer Plants with the new basic oxygen process plants that were developed after WWII.
After all, they had won both World Wars with those plants, why upgrade? New plants cost money.

Now West Germany and Japan, they weren't shackled with the old technology plants. They were destroyed in the War
They had to start fresh, and there was no reason to build the old style plants, when the new basic Oxygen process plants was far more efficient, fewer workers but made cheaper, and higher quality steel.

By time the 1970s roll around, they just can't compete, so the Steel Unions and Steel Plant Owners, just delayed the inevitable by requesting tariffs and outright limits on the import of higher quality, lower cost steel . Now South Korean Steel was starting to do to Japan, even cheaper and just as good, with China just around the corner, with improved relations after Mao was gone

So even without the Strike, still run into the problem that US Steel costs too much, and much was of lower quality and not the newer more desired alloy types. So the old plants are shuttered, Unionmen laid off.

But at this point, new US Plants were opening using the new methods, so actually US steel production didn't totally drop off, but still was more expensive, so imports continued to take market share, as US demand for Steel kept increasing after the 1970s Economic shocks

y1wI4FRwM-JRg9BpkKChLBlfn4C2PXzOeNMvu-aBmUo.jpg
This is fascinating. Did the newer steel mills with the hydrogen process end up surviving or did the whole American steel industry suffer that even the efficient cheaper factories just couldn't stand out? Curious to know how destined this all was.
 
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