This article was reprinted from the March 8, 1997 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.
(Gus Hall, former steelworker, leader of the 1937 Little Steel strike, now national chair of the Communist Party, talks about what today's Wheeling-Pitt strike means for labor.)
The heroic battle of 4,500 striking steelworkers in five Wheeling-Pitt (WP) plants stretching across three states is going into its sixth month. It is fast becoming the longest walkout in the history of the industry.
The striking steelworkers are up against a steel giant with industry-wide corporate and Wall Street backing. The strike has become a class struggle of historic proportions in a class war to break the strike and the steel union. The strike is in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio - five towns and more than 27 communities. This whole region has become a class war zone.
There are strikes that affect only individual plants and individual corporations. There are strikes that affect a whole industry and all the unions in that industry. Then there are the historic strikes like Wheeling-Pitt.
The effects of the strike by the steelworkers against WP's five plants is having an impact on the steel industry as a whole, the towns and communities involved, the three states, the steel union, the trade union movement - and the national economic, political and ideological implications.
The magnitude of the strike, the anti-striker, anti-union campaign, together with the political, religious, business, media and corporate forces arrayed against the union, all demonstrate the importance monopoly capital and the U.S. ruling class place on defeating this strike and this union.
Thus, it is now clear that such a strike, with so much at stake, can only be won with the full mobilization, solidarity and unity of steelworkers, their families and communities, the steel union, the trade union movement, in unity with working class organizations and communities throughout the country. It will take total class solidarity, a unity in solidarity of Black-Brown and white.
Aside from my political and class solidarity with the WP strikers, I have a very personal identification with this strike through my history as a steelworker and union organizer in the Mahoning Valley. I spent some 10 years as a steelworkers Organizing Committee (SWOC) organizer, in some of the same towns, in those fierce early battles to win the steel union.
The WP strike recalls for me that great SWOC organizing drive in the Valley and the 1937 steel strike against Republic that forced the "Little Steel" companies to finally recognize the union.
In July 1995, I returned to visit my old Warren, Ohio steel local, 1375, at the local's invitation. The timing of my visit gave us an opportunity to support my local that was then locked out and fighting for its life and the jobs of its members. It was locked in a bitter battle with Warren Consolidated Steel (WCI), owned by the Renco Group, over the same issue - a decent, liveable pension for the workers who saved the company and made millions for its owners. The strike ended after a 54-day battle with a total victory for the workers and their union. Unity and solidarity was the key to victory.
Because of my history I have a special, very personal interest in the victory of my fellow steelworkers and the survival of my union, the United steelworkers of America.
The USWA has come a long, long way since those early organizing years. Today, I am proud to say, it stands as perhaps the most progressive, militant, class struggle- oriented union in the country.
Today, it is the WP steelworkers who are on the front lines of the class war with corporate America. That is why the ruling class, Wall Street and corporate America have targeted the USWA with the opening gun in its class war against a revitalized, militant trade union movement.
The steel union I helped to organize and build is on the line at Wheeling-Pitt. The significance of this strike is nothing less than the survival of the USWA, with profound ramifications for the AFL-CIO and the whole trade union movement.
After almost six months of relentless attack from many sources, it is clear that WP's efforts to break the strike have the political and unlimited financial backing of important sectors of big business and Wall Street.
Therefore, one of the fightback tactics must be to target and expose the real plant owners - all of them. WP is another one of those mystery corporations where many of the real owners lurk in the shadows of Wall Street - sitting in their corporate suites directing the downsizing, mergers and acquisitions, and the strike-breaking campaigns.
What we do know is that WP is in part owned by the infamous Ron LeBow, chairman of WHX, the parent company of WP, and some other as yet unknown Wall Street investors, who bought the company at a "fire sale" price and made a killing. And they are willing to go to great lengths to keep making that killing of $16 per ton profit from the labor of their workers.
The war against the workers is an attempt to keep that huge profit margin, and even raise it, by cutting pensions, gutting workers' insurance, contracting out, eliminating seniority and work rules and offering a sham pension plan that would force steelworkers and their families into retirement poverty.
LeBow is the visible, hands-on front man who's been making windfall profits of millions over 11 years and admits sitting on a cash reserve of $406 million, which he's been using in efforts to break the strike. Crying poverty, LeBow says, "The union proposals will kill us. The union wants to take money out of that $406 million and we're not going to let them do it." That's the bottom line - corporate profits!
With unlimited resources, LeBow is personally directing an ideological campaign costing millions, including full page ads and stories in every local paper. The ads are filled with rumors, distortions and outright lies about the negotiations, the strikers, the union and union leaders, in an attempt to divide the strikers from the communities.
The company is spending millions trying to create splits within the union and foment a back-to-work movement. The company is spending millions on ads that don't tell the public the truth, that Wheeling-Pitt is demanding:
1) The right to shut down any department or factory without having to guarantee jobs.
2) The right to contract out any job that they can have done cheaper.
3) The right to eliminate all non-steel-making jobs.
If the union agreed to these demands, Wheeling-Pitt would immediately be able to eliminate 1,000 of the 4,500 employees before any of the workers could even set foot in the mills again.
The union is determined to settle only with a contract that will fairly compensate their members for the hard and dangerous work they do, that will protect their jobs and livelihoods and provide pensions that guarantee them a secure retirement. These are just demands that have come into conflict with the demands of millionaire financiers whose only interest is bigger profits.
The company is spending millions working to create splits between the strikers and the communities. The fact that this strike is in five plants in five different towns makes it easier for the corporation to influence such communities - which are, indeed, hurting. No one denies that a strike creates terrible economic hardship for the entire community because it is the consumer buying power of workers' paychecks and their taxes that make it possible for towns to survive.
But it is not the strikers who are the cause of the hardship. No one is suffering more than they are. It is the Ron LeBows and their greedy corporate "profit before people" policies that force workers out on picket lines. Workers are forced to strike because corporations refuse to negotiate a decent contract with the workers who make their obscene profits possible.
Cities and towns all across the country have been decimated by corporate decisions to lay off, close plants and move to lower wage, non-union areas. The size and extent of the strike-breaking campaign, the money and forces involved in creating a strike-breaking atmosphere, lead me to believe that WP is preparing to bring in scabs to operate the mills.
Their recent hiring of the notorious James Scheesele, who brought in scabs to run the plant and try to break the strike at WCI in Warren, is also evidence that an attempt to bring in scabs to operate the WP mills is on the company agenda. This makes the broadening and mobilizing of support even more urgent.
It is true that support has been pouring in, that trucks, buses and vans are bringing money, food, clothing and supporters from all over the region. But to win, the support and solidarity has to be even bigger, broader - nationwide. The cause of the WP steelworkers has to be brought to every working class family in this country.
Every steelworker, every steel local, every union, the AFL- CIO and the working class of this country has to see this fight as their fight. That's the way the steel industry corporations see it. That's the way Wall Street sees it.
They have united behind WP's effort to break the strike and the steel union. The capitalist class sees itself as a class with identical corporate interests. They have made this strike an all-out class war against the workers.
The outcome of this strike will have tremendous implications for the future balance of class forces and the class struggle as a whole in this country. That's why nothing less than total mobilization, total solidarity and total unity of the working class can win!
Local unions, people's organizations, should immediately set up strike support committees that would focus on winning and demonstrating support for the strike.
These committees should work to pass central labor and city council resolutions, statements of support from legislators, politicians, religious and community leaders, small businessmen and try to win favorable media coverage for demonstrations, marches and press conferences. Strike committees should organize buses to bring picket line support and plant collections to the striking workers.
The entire trade union movement and the working class communities of our country have to be reached and won over to active support for the Wheeling-Pitt strike, as if it were their strike - because in a very real sense it is.
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