Colleen Grahek

Contributing Writer

As the semester comes to an end, so does the final Provost Colloquium. It took place last Wednesday night in a room full of staff members and students at Beers Lecture Hall. Hosted by Dr. Jill Schennum, professor and chair of social sciences at the County College of Morris, this presentation focused on Schennum’s research on the effects of deindustrialization on the Bethlehem Steel Mill workers in Bethlehem, Pa., and possible impacts on the current economy in the United States.

“In order to understand what deindustrialization means, we must examine what work means to people,” Schennum said. “Remember, work is different than jobs. I am an anthropologist. I observed and conducted open-ended in-depth interviews with these workers over long periods of time.”

Schennum added that she gathered 125 interviews in 25 years.

Provost Dr. Margaret Ball stated that she reached out to ESU’s community college partners and invited Dr. Schennum to talk about her book, “As Goes Bethlehem: Steelworkers and the Restructuring of an Industrial Working Class,” at the colloquium.

Shennum started the presentation by providing a brief background and history of the Bethlehem Steel Mill. She touched on the mill’s early years, including its role in producing materials during World War I and World War II. The pictures on the slides illustrated how the size of the mill and the population of its workers gradually decreased over the years.

Schennum then went into more detail about her interviews, providing snippets of quotes that she gathered to emphasize her points:

-Inside the Mill:

• Working class ties with the mill
• The no-strike clause in 1973 and how it resulted in increased productivity
• How OSHA gave more control to the workers by allowing workers to stop work if conditions were unfavorable
• How culture, ethos and moral economy was rooted in a physical place

-Citizenship:

• How workers developed a plant-wide principle of seniority
• White middle-class workers’ feelings towards minority and women workers

-Solidarity:

• How workers depended on each other’s skills, noting how most of the work was done in crews or gangs

-Masculinity:

• The close relationships of workers who have collaborated with each other for years
• Traits that were traditionally identified as masculine such as vulgar language, physical prowess and sexual jokes, and how those physical traits increased and decreased productivity

-Exclusions:

• How women and minority groups were treated in the mill

-The downsizing and eventual closing of the mill:

• The Uneven Process of Industrialization:
  • Gradual closing of certain departments
  • New management and investments
  • How the displacements of people and investments of increased productivity created a confusing and uncertain environment for workers

-Strategies:

• Internal and external transfers:
  • How these transfers affected the workers and their relationships with their families
  • How working in another location caused hostility between the native and transferred workers
• The struggle of keeping medical deferments and pensions for younger workers
• Early retirement for eligible workers

Schennum noted that most people believed that the closing of the mills was “inevitable.”

“In my book, I make the argument that it was not natural or inevitable,” she said. “It took 25 years to shut down this mill. While the mills in big cities like Chicago and Pittsburgh closed overnight, it was a slower and more confusing process here.”

An audience member asked Schennum if she had met any self-identifying queer steelworkers.

Schennum answered, “There were none in my studies. None of the women I interviewed identified as such in the community. Although, there was one woman who had transitioned during their time in the mill. I have tried getting in touch with them but I never could.”

Schennum added that as a result of friction between the men and women workers, bathrooms were a point of contention within the mill. She said that when women were first allowed to work in the mills, many of the men were unwelcoming and carved chunks off of the men’s restrooms to create an unsanitary makeshift restroom for the women.

Schennum concluded with a series of questions:

• What can we learn from this?
• What questions does this raise?
• What kind of society do we want to have in the U.S.?
• What will happen to a society that is not producing goods any longer?
• Can the economy remain strong if the working class is not being paid enough money to purchase goods?
• Is the U.S. society a developed society without a robust middle class?
• What is useful work for the U.S. economy and society?
• What is the role of unions?

“These are questions I would throw out there that I think come out of this critique that steelworkers have in contemporary society,” Schennum said.

To view the recording of this colloquium please visit this link:

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