by Salena Zito, Townhall:
CAMPBELL, Ohio — Sept. 19 marked 47 years since thousands of workers, who were mainly men, did what they did every Monday in the valley. They walked into the Campbell Works of Youngstown Sheet and Tube along the Mahoning River for the early shift.
Within an hour of the workers’ shift, Youngstown Sheet and Tube abruptly furloughed 5,000 of them in a single day. Within months, 16 more plants owned by U.S. Steel shut down, including Youngstown-based Ohio Works.
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The company cited foreign imports, lack of profitability, aging facilities and the cost of growing government regulations on the industry to explain the move.
Workers mumbled, “It didn’t help that the company hadn’t upgraded their facilities in decades.”
The community came together in a way that was passionate and admirable. The late Staughton Lynd, a leader in the 1960s social justice movement, said an emergency meeting was called by the Central Labor Union on the night of the first furloughs. It put a plan together to send petitions to then-President Jimmy Carter, encouraging him to stop steel imports and put an ease on regulations that were hurting the industry.
Within three days, over 100,000 signatures were collected. Five chartered buses of 300 men, local elected officials and faith leaders went to Washington to deliver them to Carter, Lynd said.
Former Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio) joined them for a rally as they waved signs that read: “Save the Steel Industry.” Lynd said Carter never bothered to send out an aide to receive the petitions when they arrived or acknowledge them.
National newspapers buried the story on page A-12. If The New York Times wrote about it in real time, it was not found in its archives. The people here, it seems, were expendable to the elite. They had no college education, did not live in the right ZIP codes, and besides, someone overseas could do what they do.
