The Coke Plant

Photo by Ted Shaffrey/AP

Perhaps you have read in today’s Inquirer (August 12) about the massive fire at the coke plant that feeds U.S Steel near Pittsburgh. The explosion was massive because the coke plant is a massive, gigantic array of iron encompassing miles of land for the steel mill. There would be no steel mill without a coke plant because at the steel mills a coke plant burns coal at a higher temp than coal and is an ideal fuel to burn in the blast furnace. The steel is forged and then finished off in a steel rolling mill in coils. It is then shipped out. You may have seen trucks with large coils of steel being transported.

Nearby residents near the mill have been asked to stay inside because the process of turning coal to coke releases a lethal mix of coke gas, methane and carbon monoxide after it is burned in huge ovens. Lawsuits have accused the mill of having 12,000 violations of the Clean Air Act.

The ovens emitted these noxious fumes, and by their very nature during the summer the heat was the most unbearable. I was a part of a small group of college guys who were working there. We were issued masks, but you couldn’t wear them because they would fog up with perspiration and made it more difficult to breathe. When I spit, it was black. I could taste the coal gas even when I was at home. When I lay down in bed to sleep, I could feel every muscle in my body. This was true for the entire time in the summer when I was there. I was covered with soot from head to foot and looked like a bad imitation from a minstrel show. Why would anybody submit to this? “Show me the money!” I can’t imagine a higher paying job for the summer than working in that mill.  I could afford room and tuition for college and have enough money to get me through the next year. Why? It was because of the steelworker’s union. They ran the show!

I learned about the union first thing even when I walked into the steel mill office to apply for the job and was told that I would have to join the union. It wasn’t cheap! I was directed to the union’s office where a robust guy introduced me to reality of life in the mill. “Look college boy, if you want to work, you join the union. Get it?” I got it!

If you have purchased any of my books, you know that when I am stating my educational credentials, I put my time in the steel mill along with them for I learned as much there about life as I did at any of the universities that I attended.

We ate lunch in a corrugated metal shed. There was no water there, so we ate with dirty hands. It was as close as I have come to test all my animal instincts. It was survival of the fittest.

If you look at the photo above, you will see a long structure that housed a conveyer belt where coal was moved to the ovens once it was dumped to an underground area where I worked. The coal fell off the belts. My job was to make sure that it got shoveled onto that belt. Each dump produced coal dust where there were times when you couldn’t see the hand in front of you. If you couldn’t shovel it, the coal would gather around your feet and ankles. My job was ten-hour days. The head of the Irish Mafia who ran the mill told me to grease the wheels as I made my way up the belt where coal also spilled. I did it once but gave him such an attitude that he never asked again. I was dumb to the culture.

There were several workers who took me under their wing and told me how life really worked. One of them was an African American single parent with a young son at home. He paced up and down like a football coach with his hands behind his back and leaning forward who was most helpful. I learned so much from him. He called me the professor.

The mill folded as the union demands were outrageous. One of my high school classmates who worked as a secretary there told me later that men arrived at the locked metal gates when the company folded. They were shocked. They thought this would go on forever.

Now for a “you can’t make this stuff up” story! Later in life when I was at EA, I was asked to do a society wedding of two friends who had affluent backgrounds. When Vicki and I sat down for dinner after the ceremony, I was seated next to the owner of that mill. He was very bitter about the union and expressed it with great anger. When he finished, I told him that I worked there during the summer. I described in a measured way the conditions that I and others had to work in. It was a jungle like Sinclair Lewis’ book by the title of The Jungle that exposed the Chicago meat packing plants as hell on earth. I told him that there are two sides to every story. It was a memorable exchange. We shook hands and parted as friends!

I still have the union badge with my picture at the steel mill. I have kept it so that I would never forget the lessons I learned there about life, motivation, and gratitude that enabled me to get started on an education at some great schools.