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Steelworkers
All photos by Edward A. Leskin
Bob Burkie
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“It gets into your bones. It’s weird! You’re in the
open hearth, and you can hear the wind blowing down the river and making noise
around the stacks. And you go into the furnace and come out. You’re all sweated and
you’re standing back behind the open hearth and you’re freezing. I always had a
beard and long hair. And that was another thing when I first started at the steel
company. I was the first hippie! I used to hang out at the gas station across from
the YMCA and one of the guys says, 'Burkie, you need a haircut you know. You gotta
look presentable at the steel company. Well, how about I give you a haircut?' They
put the lift up at the gas station. I sat on the lift. They got a yellow raincoat
out and they all stood in like, and got a God damn hair clippers and they gave me a
haircut. The way they cut my hair, I’d walk around naked if I had to. You could see
where the clippers went up the back, you know, and they missed a lot. I thought it
looked nice, so I went to work, right? Then everybody’s talking about it and I had
an earring. I was the first guy with an earring. Right? Well, I let my hair grow
back in again and they were calling me the “HE-SHE!” They were going from one end of
the plant just to see me. Lotta guys resented my hair and a couple of them wanted to
give me haircuts. We had a conflict there. The guy in the beam yard and the guy in
the labor gang come out with a big pair of wallpaper scissors and came after me and
we fell on the floor and it was close. And that was the last time they fooled with
my hair!” |
Bob Shoemaker
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“I often wondered. All the steel we handled on a given
shift, where does all this steel go? Thirty-five years of moving steel, round the
clock, where on earth could all this steel be going? But when we go out to all these
various shopping malls, and ah, to the older ones, in Reading, that’s all
constructed with older steel. I always look for the Bethlehem Steel mark, Bethlehem
USA. It had to go somewhere; cause I know it didn’t all rust away. I always admired
our steel. It was always superior to other steel companies that I have seen. The
steel we always shipped out was always perfect. If it were a little twisted or just
a little bit what they call gagged, why they’d reject it. I am always proud of that.
In fact, if you go out where I was born, you’ll see a steel bridge there. And that
steel bridge has Bethlehem Steel in it. In Kernsville, and that’s there since 1929,
and it’s still standing. When we were kids we crawled up and down these beams, never
thinking I would be working at the steel company. I would like to look at the plant
now, and walk through the gate and go down through the tunnel, and walk what we used
to call the "other world". Like going down to 'The Wizard of Oz' or 'Alice in
Wonderland' where you walk through the tunnel to another world. Another language
down there too! I’d rather not elaborate on it. That was another world.” |
Dave Swartz
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“The mills rolling normally, you know. Many blooms an
hour. And the spirits up, you know. It’s just like another day, only today’s our
last day. And we were rolling, and then finally, when the last bloom, when the last
piece of steel comes out of the mill itself, they blow this one loud siren, and
somebody says the end! And they wrote on the last bar in soap chalk, because it’s
red hot. When it cooled, the end, for sale! And then, when the mill was done
rolling, everybody’s mood got somber, you know, cause the end set in there, like
forty bars away. And as the bar kept getting closer, things got quieter. And when
the last bar came down the roller mill, the very last happened to come down on the
south side, and we were, they were cuttin' it up. We were told to cut into twenty
foot pieces, we were cutting it because we wanted the Bethlehem Steel logo, every
eighteen inches, so we got some of those. And then, when the guy, when the saw
operator made the last final cut, the tears started to come down our eyes, and we
hugged everybody. We were sad. And that was the first time we heard the mill silent.
A lot of the guys you work with, you’re never gonna see them again. A lot of the
guys that had accidents, you nurse back to health, call them at home, and be right
there. A lot of those you are never going to see again. Some of the guys come from
Tomaqua, Lehighton, Hazleton, you know. Some of them a long ways off. You know you
are never going to see them again. Just wish them luck!” |
Frank Behum
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“I started at the Steel in 1965. Everybody worked at
the Steel going back to my grandfather. I am a fourth generation steelworker. I grew
up in South Bethlehem. The first day I walked into Bethlehem Steel, I took one look
at the hot bars slithering across the ground and I said to the guy in charge, a guy
by the name 'Pinky' who was like a safety man, I said to him, I says, 'My God,' I
says, 'Am I going to have to work there?' He said 'Son, don’t worry about it. Only
the sacred cows work in that area.' And I turned around to the guy behind me and I
said, 'What’s a sacred cow?' It was the first time I ever heard the term. And he to
me, he says, 'Well Frank,' he says, 'A sacred cow is a guy that’s been around so
long, that nobody questions anything that he says.' He says, 'These guys have
whiskers!' I says, 'They have what?' He says, 'They got seniority.' He says,
'Everything works by seniority down here at this Bethlehem Plant unless you’re a
member of management.'
I was in awe. More because of the noise and the activity more than anything else.
I walked in there and the first thing that hit me was the noise. It wasn’t so bad,
the heat or anything like that, or, you know, the cold, the dampness. But it really
struck me. You know I started in the winter, and when I saw those operations I said
to myself, could I even do something like that.” |
George Cope
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“Gives ya a sad feeling things aren’t gonna be any
better 'cause it’s just like somebody dying, like a company that’s dying you know.
Just going out of business. You could see there is not a future for anybody coming
in. So it sort of made you feel a little bad about it. That these kids that come out
of school don’t have a place to go to work and make a decent living. Sort of gives
you a bad feeling the way everything went. The thing is, it’s a good thing it’s (the
museum) coming in. But I would rather see a steel company rather than a museum cause
I know what the place looked like. I don’t know how it’s going to work out that they
will probably get a lot of people coming in interested in it because it was an
interesting place to work. All the different things that went on down there. The way
things happened. The way the ingot came out.” |
Helen Weaver
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“They asked me to come, and I went for an interview
and I got a job right away. And then I got into the fifth floor. That beautiful
fifth floor. I only started as a part time worker. I was put on full time for
thirty-two years. I’m now getting a nice pension from the steel company. They’ve
been very, very, good to me. I worked up in the executive dining room. I waited on
Mr. Grace and all the people that were his aides and vice presidents and so on. It
was a beautiful job. I got to know Mr. Grace. He knew me. I only worked six hours a
day and that was fine because it gave me time to be home. I got my children off to
school, and I was there when they came home from school. My husband also worked in
the Bethlehem Steel. He worked out in the number two machine shop, and my brothers,
one worked in the open hearth, another one was a crane man. My brother also worked,
good times and bad times. It was fun to go to work. We had everything. Our
uniforms were given to us. Everything was spotless. They have an Austrian-Hungarian
chef. Things, he was absolutely, went his way you know. He had that place so
spotless and it was a busy, busy place. We were like a family. You always helped one
another. Very nice happy working days. We had thirteen weeks vacation! Would you
believe that? My husband, he worked out in the plant. This was the beautiful thing
about Bethlehem Steel. I’m very grateful for that. They had to take physical
examinations, and my husband, they found he had a heart problem. Rather than lay him
off, they put him into the main office building and gave him a desk job. Now can you
imagine that? He worked in the stock room and he didn’t have to lift anything!” |
Jerry Green
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“The union is definitely needed in all industries
throughout this nation and worldwide, and a prime example is what's happening right
now in China where they have the slave labor over there working for eight cents an
hour. Their living environment over there is through a poverty level. You couldn’t
even live as a street person over here in New York City or Philadelphia. If it
wasn’t for this union, we wouldn’t have the benefits we have to this day. You
wouldn’t have the thirty-year retirements. You wouldn’t have the rule 65
retirements. You wouldn’t have the surviving spouse benefits. You wouldn’t have
medical coverage after retirement. You would not have severance pay. You wouldn’t
have the unemployment laws that you have where our people were able to collect. You
wouldn’t have sub pay which people were able to collect for two years. All those
people things that union fought hard for over the years. My forefathers fought, and
those are benefits that these people that are retiring now that worked at Bethlehem
Steel should be thankful and gracious that they had men like that. That fought for
our workers' rights. Its sad every time that I have to drive into the plant,
because being the union president, we do still service the Lehigh Heavy Forge. I
look and the memories come back for me as I drive through there and I see all the
buildings that were torn down, and the loss of jobs. And I just think back and
recall the many men that were there in and out the gate. Hundreds of men at a time.
All those paychecks lost for those individuals. Its very sad. Lots of ghosts. One of
the things that I miss about Bethlehem Steel, and it will always probably be in my
mind forever is that whenever on Broad Street when you would look out and you would
see the blast furnaces going, you could see the flames and you could smell the steel
company, you know, and it was every day. I miss the dirt being on the cars because I
knew that there was thousands of jobs that went with that. So it was certainly
something that’s gone by. It’s always in my mind. I miss it terribly.” |
Joe "The Hat" Wilfinger
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“When they told me it was a full union plant, that
pleased me to no end. I realized that I would have protection. I probably would have
been fired in '64 if it hadn’t been for the union. I was a rebel all of my life.
I’ve always been an odd ball, different. I liked being different. I’m proud of being
different. So, I think I was hired as a token hippie because I had long hair, I wore
beads and flowers and I think when I did the interview, I think that’s why I was
hired, cause they were hiring token African Americans at the time and I think they
had Spanish in the plant at the coke works area. This was the mid 60’s remember, so
they were hiring a lot of token people to look good, and I think I was a token
hippie. I really do! Originally, I was a commercial artist and wanted to do
something in the art field. I got a job at the steel and I thought what a filthy
hellhole. I mean, to me, it was a filthy, dirty place. I’m used to being a
commercial artist working in an office where it’s clean and neat. Down there, you
walked around and it was a dump. Trash, grease everywhere. It was filthy. Size
didn’t impress me that much. I was amazed to see the number of people working there.
A lot of the hot molten metal and that sort of stuff. The big furnaces, that made a
big impression on me. That’s like walking inside a volcano. I mean that’s the way it
felt most of the time around that hot molten metal. I always tell my wife, I don’t
worry about going to heaven, I’ve already been to hell, so I worked at the steel
company.” |
John Barbarak
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“I started at the blast furnace. I came from Hungary,
born December 7th, 1905. A friend of mine come from the same village. He told me,
hell, he said you could go there and within a half of year, I was in the United
States. I started there, like I say, at the blast furnaces. There was one welder
there, because only one person is not allowed to work there alone, so I had to be
there with him. In the mean time, I learned how to weld from this guy, but not good
enough so they sent me to welding school. And then I started as a welder at the
riggers gang. They needed somebody, a small one, to get into tough places, so I came
out of welding school. I was nineteen. I had no problem with nobody. I had a lot of
friends. We worked in all kind of weather, up and down, rain and nighttime. Rigging
is all kind of jobs 'cause, like welder, they pick a small guy to get in, like what
I was talking about, to go through that tank, you know. I was the size they needed.
I had to lie on my back and weld lying on my back. I got tired a lot of the time, on
midnight shifts and all, up and down. Welding foreman in the steel said, “'Hey John,
they need a welder in the welding shop.' I said oh, this is a good job. Then you
don’t have to go up and down in the tanks you know. Better pay! I worked there until
1969.” |
Paul Coachys
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“I was born in South Bethlehem, about a block from
Bethlehem Steel in 1929, July 26th to be exact. My Dad worked in Bethlehem Steel
when I was born. Funny, there was something about the place, I guess it had a
magnetism to it because at first when I was a kid growing up I swore to God I would
never work there. When I got my job down there, I loved it. Some people used to say
you got to be crazy liking this place. There was something about it, I guess. Well,
first of all, it was interesting. When you walked through some of those shops where
they made those big shafts, it would mesmerize you. You see a piece that big being
pressed into shape. What I thought was the most impressive part when I walked in
there was the danger. And yet with all the danger, I must say they had a terrific
safety program. That I must say, even though guys did get injured, they did press
safety. When I first came out of the service, we didn’t have that. We didn’t have to
wear hard hats; we didn’t have to wear safety glasses, safety shoes, and all that. I
often wondered just what’s the purpose of this until when you get on the job and
things happen, you can understand why they press safety so hard. To actually save
your life! That was both union and management. They were both out to help us and
save our lives. The one thing I remember was the 48" steam engine. I talked to the
operator one day and he says you know Paul, If I opened this engine up I could send
this engine to Hellertown! I said you're kidding! No, 100,000 Horses behind this
thing. I believed it!” |
Pete DiPietro
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“The best thing about working in the plant was the
friendship, the community of the fellow steelworkers. Remembering all the good times
you had sitting on the lunch benches, sitting around the lunch table with the guys
discussing their personal lives you know. It was like coming into work, sitting with
your morning coffee. First thing you do, hi Joe, hi Ed, what’s up. You didn’t know
their last names. You knew their first names and their nicknames. It was your second
family. Believe me it was. You knew those people as well as you did your family
members. That part I don’t think I will ever forget. The Deacon, Ph, Spaghetti
Bender. Evil Knieval. You knew people by nicknames. You knew them by first names.
Most of the time they would call me Pete. The worst thing about working there for
me was, for me, investigating the deaths while I was president. Every time I was
called in, the deaths, I was there. I was there for when a person got burned up
beyond all recognition. He eventually died from that. He was a good friend of mine.
That was the worst of the job. Investigating the deaths, talking to the family
members afterwards. We helped create a monument over there on 8th avenue and Union
Boulevard when I was president of the union. We created this monument dedicated to
not only steelworkers, but to people in the Lehigh Valley who lost their lives or
who were injured in the workplace. We also created a scholarship which to this day
stands. Those were the hard times. Over nine hundred people killed in the Lehigh
Valley in the workplace, and we have a memorial service the closest Sunday to April
28th every single year. Three hundred, just steelworkers alone! And that’s only from
1941 when they started to keep their records through OSHA.” |
Richie Check
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“I started in the Steel February 14th, Valentines Day,
1951. I was seventeen and one half years old. Why do I say that I was seventeen and
one half years old? 'Cause I was a senior in high school going to the vocational
school. The Steel was lookin' for machinists at the time. And I got an interview
with them. They hired me! At that particular time in life if you did not go to
college, you worked for Bethlehem Steel or Mac Motors in Allentown. Very few went to
college. If your parents had money, you went. If not, you worked at Bethlehem Steel.
My father started in 1912 working for Bethlehem Steel. Starting with my oldest
brother, and all the way down, seven of my brothers worked with my father in the
blast furnace department. It was scary, scary! I mean just walking from the main
gate to number two shop took about fifteen minute, but it was scary. You know you
looked around and you're thinkin' to yourself, you know. What am I doin' here? You
learn, you’ve got a job. You can have money in your pocket! You’re a snot nosed kid
still in your teens yet and you’re working for a corporation like Bethlehem Steel.
It was scary! There was so many dangerous things, every day while you’re workin'.
The potential was always there. You had to watch yourself especially in an area
where an overhead crane would be going by. Now, most of the time, if the crane was
carrying a load, he would not go over your head. If he had to go over your head,
everybody just stopped working and you got out of the way, let the crane man go by
and you went back to work. You’d rather do that than let something happen. That
happened many a time. Somebody always watching somebody. That was what was the idea.
Kept everybody safe and alive! You get hurt, somebody got hurt by it, the company
hurts by it, you hurt by it, your family hurts by it. Everybody hurts by it!” |
Russ Pacala
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“In 1944, as a laborer, you did all kinds of laboring
work. They had girls doing that type of work too at that time. They had the women
working down there. They did most of the sweeping up and we did all the other work
shoveling the scale, shoveling, cleaning up. That’s all I can remember. In 1944,
maybe there had to be 12,000 in our local. There were a lot of people down there.
Most of them were Spanish people. Almost all the Slovaks worked down there in these
hand mills. Well, I never had a problem working with these people because I’m just
one of those guys that can mix with everybody. In fact, I met some of my neighbors
that worked down there. And then they would take care of you. They would help you.
They would tell you how to watch yourself so you don’t get hurt and things like
that. You teach 'em what you know and you try to teach 'em to work safely so none
gets hurt. You always look out for each other. You can’t see everything. Sometimes
you warn somebody when he gets in a bad position. I had one of my friends that
couldn’t climb. He was deeply afraid to climb up on the roll racks. I would do that.
I’d say, you stay on the floor, I’ll go and do that. I'd rather do it that way
rather than see somebody get hurt. The new guys’ coming in respected me. I tried to
be good to all of 'em. I was never an enemy to any of them. You get people you
dislike but you still have to work with them and take care of them. I was one of the
fortunate guys that could stay awake on night shift. And when you work with someone
that can’t stay awake, it’s really a headache. You got to keep that guy awake all
night. I pitied those people that couldn’t work the night shifts. I really did! I
worked with some guys; we had so much fun, like putting in a six-hour shift on night
shift. We made it fun. We got production going.” |
Vince Breugger
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“It’s interesting the many times I was told about
Bethlehem Steel, this big company has no or little consideration for the men out
there working in the shop and so forth. Not true! Not true. My experience, not only
what happened to many other people who came into the company and worked at various
things, types of jobs and so forth. And if there were people with talents, there
were great efforts to be made to utilize those talents, so that while, in summary,
many people say they were not a peoples company. They didn’t care about the person.
Not true! My experience is, lots of opportunity in most of the shops in the plant. I
dealt with the top level as well as the workers. And the company, in my opinion, was
always concerned with the person. The workers contributed greatly not only to the
company, but to Bethlehem. That’s what I think Bethlehem is. People who contribute
greatly to our community. We just had a great mix of immigrants and so forth that
blended together beautifully to make Bethlehem a very special city. I think it still
is. I think our youth have a responsibility to accept and improve relationships
between nationalities. When men worked here, they were going back home to their
families. Many of them worked many hours a week. Families made sacrifices. Bethlehem
is family oriented, with multi nationalities that makes a beautiful mix that makes
Bethlehem a very unique city, and I thank the Lord for that. I thank the lord I am
alive to enjoy it!” |
Vince Montoro
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“I became effective as a shop steward and I did a good
job I think for the years I served there. I thought maybe I could be helpful to the
guys, you know, to represent them in the union. I filed a lot of grievances in order
to get the guys what they had coming to them, and at the times, I get in arguments
with some of the foremen because of the filing of grievances. So I figured, hey, I
got my job to do, you got your job to do. You’re a superintendent, you’re a foreman,
and you’re doing your job. I got elected as shop steward. I’m doing my job. So
either we sit down and agree on something or we go through grievances again. So I
never regretted being a shop steward or being president or an officer of the local
union. Was I proud of my union activities? I certainly was! It was through the union
I learned a lot and I even told my grandchildren that, I says, I learned more
through the union than I learned in school. Because the union taught me how to
protect people, how to protect their jobs, how to back 'em up in situations where
they didn’t know how to protect themselves, so I was always proud that I was active
in the union. So if I had to do it over again, I’d do it again. I did my job and I
was proud to do it. So what else can I say? I never backed down from a grievance and
never gave in. Fought it to the hilt till the men got what they were entitled to.” |
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Gallery - The Steelworkers
