Word: steeling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...exactly named "in honor" of Ernest T. Weir. Rather, when Weir bought a tract of farm land in the state's panhandle in 1909 and built a sprawling steelmaking complex, he needed people and houses to go along with his factory. Thus the town was born. Today Weirton Steel Co. is a division of National Steel Corp., but a majority of the labor force in Weirton (pop. 25,536) still works in the rumbling, fuming steelworks along Main Street. "It's sink or swim together," says Mary Brula, a bank teller whose husband has worked at Weirton Steel...
Lately, sinking together has been a distinct possibility. In March, National Steel announced it was "not economically feasible" to modernize the marginally profitable (less than $10 million on 1981 sales of $1 billion) Weirton plant; the company prefers to invest in other enterprises with "the potential for substantially higher returns." By 1987 most of the factory would be shut down and 70% of the work force fired, unless, National Steel said, Weirton's 8,800 workers would like to buy the facility and run it themselves...
Weirton native and the union's lawyer. "You can talk all you want about 'worker participation,' but you don't have anything unless you have a decent business." Right now the steel company is both the largest employer and taxpayer in the state. Employees have always had their own in-house union, unaffiliated with the United Steelworkers of America, and relations with management have been comparatively smooth (no strikes since the Depression) and rewarding (wages and benefits average $24.65 an hour, compared with about $22 for Steelworkers nationally...
...dominance of the town by the steel company is plain. Smokestacks and giant ventilator shafts are visible for miles, and waste slag sits in heaps around the townscape. A billboard proclaims
Forming a necklace across a quarter of the North American continent, the lakes are an important artery for commerce, allowing ships to ferry such products of the American heartland as grain, steel and timber to countries around the world. They also are a major sport fishery for such species as lake trout, salmon and muskellunge and an aquatic playground for vacationers. Environmentalists used to fear that some of the lakes were dead or dying, but the era of mindless dumping has finally ended, and the water's purity seems to be improving from year to year...