Workers at U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works make steel for the smart homes, energy-efficient appliances and high-tech vehicles in ever-greater demand as America exits the pandemic and charts a new course for prosperity.
Their counterparts at other mills across Pennsylvania build steel for the military and for the modern roads and bridges and safer water systems springing into existence through the nation’s historic infrastructure program.
These workers supply America. They also anchor the state’s economy and sustain the communities that their families have called home for generations.
A new report from the Allegheny Conference on Community Development underscores steel’s statewide impact and the need for manufacturers to invest in their facilities to ensure that the industry remains viable for future generations.
The study determined that about 108,000 Pennsylvanians — many of them members of my union, the United Steelworkers (USW) — work in iron and steel mills and fabricated structural metals manufacturing facilities across the commonwealth.
The industry also provides a living indirectly to hundreds of thousands of others, according to the study, which was conducted at the request of Pennsylvania Steel Alliance.
Researchers put the overall impact of the state’s steel industry at $100 billion a year. While steel clearly matters to all Pennsylvanians, it’s especially important in areas like Allegheny County that continue to struggle with long-term job and population decline.
Allegheny County lost 50,000 jobs over the past five years, more than any other county in Pennsylvania. Failure to safeguard steel industry jobs will not only exacerbate that kind of decline but hollow out entire communities, including many in the Mon Valley that USW members now keep afloat with their good wages, solid pensions and civic involvement.
The study on the steel industry’s impact represents a call to action.
It’s essential that manufacturers like U.S. Steel make the capital investments required to keep their facilities globally competitive for decades to come.
Elected officials, including the state lawmakers who discussed the study May 11 during a House Steel Caucus meeting at the Mon Valley Works, need to lead and encourage steelmakers to make these upgrades and then hold them accountable.
Here, in steel’s birthplace, some of the same last names have graced union rolls for three and even four generations. Many of these hard-working families now have teenagers and middle-schoolers eager to follow in their ancestors’ footsteps and commit to steel all over again.
The work ethic, skills and knowledge essential to this vital industry have been passed from parent to child and from union member to union member for decades. This vast storehouse of expertise, built up day by day and year after year, will never be duplicated anywhere else.
USW members in Pennsylvania make the most reliable, highest quality steel in the world. They built this nation and helped to win two world wars. They know what they’re doing and want to keep doing it.
They’re all-in. Now, it’s time for Pennsylvania’s steel companies and elected officials to show that they’re just as invested in the industry’s future.
Bernie Hall is a fourth-generation USW member. As director of USW District 10, he leads tens of thousands of USW members in Pennsylvania.
