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Posted by dave royal [75.81.249.81] on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 19:11:25 :
In Reply to: Re: when will it end? posted by Franz [209.86.226.54] on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 00:12:50 :
Franz, I can only speak for the mill I worked in at the time that the japs were importing steel with the support of their own govt. when the people you are trying to compete with can make it, ship it, and sell it for less than what it costs you to make it, there is not much chance you are going to survive. the men that I worked with (and me) gave back over 4.00 per hour of wages and about half our benifits trying to stay in the hunt. we did not survive.it wouldn't have made any differece if we had worked for .50 cents, the japs would have just dropped the selling price that much lower. then was the aluminim smelter, 6 yrs there, commies did the same thing to us. if I am thinking of the same Bethleham steel you are, there are several things that went into that one, unions not being the least of it, but the process was part to blame along with the japs again, and the amount of polutents produced by the process, the entire steel industry at that time didnot think anyone could knock their throne down, how wrong they were. there wasn't enough R&D going on at the time, there was a lot of open hearth & BOF, they were hard to make run clean, the electric furnances wern't as bad but still wasn't great. the EPA didn't help and as the cost per pound rose we couldn't drop our wages enough to compete with a govt. subsidised competitor. do not take all this wrong, I am not super duper union guy, my father told me that in order for me to have a job, the company that you work for has to be healthy, something that present day unions have lost sight of, they will bleed a company dry if they can, which I don't agree with. enough for now, Dave.