American Steel

WASHINGTON -- Putting an end to striker-replacement practices heads the agenda of hundreds of Steelworkers here this week for their annual legislative conference.Replacing of striking employees by management has become "the most effective union-breaking device" to emerge from the 1980s, when President Reagan demonstrated the practice by firing striking air traffic controllers, said Rep. William D. Ford, D-Mich."It won't be very long before you'll be afraid to face a strike," Ford told members of the United Steelworkers of America.

Armco Inc., the owner of two stainless steel operations in the Baltimore area, said yesterday that it expects a loss in the third quarter that is "somewhat greater" than the $15 million lost in the second quarter, excluding extraordinary items.Meanwhile, Armco's stainless steel rod and wire division is working with other producers in preparing trade cases against foreign companies, which they accuse of dumping steel on the U.S. market or receiving unfair government subsidies.Armco released its third-quarter earnings estimate yesterday with a filing it submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the planned offering of $200 million in senior notes and convertible preferred stock.

WASHINGTON - Executives from competing steel companies stood shoulder to shoulder yesterday with a top union official and Sen. Jay Rockefeller in their push for President Bush to impose 40 percent tariffs on imported steel. The fate of the American steel industry is in "the cup of the hands of the president of the United States," the West Virginia Democrat said yesterday prior to a Senate committee hearing on tariffs. Imported steel that has been flowing freely into the United States has helped drive down prices and has in part lead to dozens of steel makers filing for bankruptcy protection over the past several years.

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.--Let me state this very clearly -- American businesses strongly support efforts to achieve comprehensive national health-care reform. This support includes big businesses, such as Bethlehem Steel and other major corporations, and it includes thousands of small businesses all across the country.We at Bethlehem have been actively supporting comprehensive health-care reform both as an individual company and as a member of the National Leadership Coalition for Health Care Reform.

A FEW weeks ago a group of film-makers and producers came to Baltimore to make a movie, but the visit went unheralded and almost unnoticed.They weren't from Hollywood. They were from blue-collar Pittsburgh. And their subjects weren't privileged folk in Roland Park, but black steelworkers and their families in East Baltimore and Turner Station in Baltimore County."Struggles in Steel: A Visual History of African-American Steel Workers" is a documentary that will be aired on PBS in early 1994.

Baltimore County won't be buying any imported steel without a fight.County Councilman John Olszewski, a Dundalk Democrat whose district is home to many Bethlehem Steel Corp. workers, has introduced a resolution requiring the county to continue buying only products made with American-made steel.His resolution, to be introduced at the council's Monday night meeting, is in response to changes the county Planning Board made in January to two purchasing manuals. Those changes would allow the county to purchase products made from foreign steel, said Tim Dugan, a spokesman for the county planning office.

WASHINGTON - Legislation that pledges as much as $13 billion to pay health insurance for retired steelworkers is facing resistance, prompting concern that a cornerstone of industry plans to consolidate may be jeopardized. The measure's failure would mean companies such as U.S. Steel Corp. would be unable to acquire weaker rivals such as bankrupt Bethlehem Steel Corp. because commitments to retirees, obligations known as "legacy costs," are too high. "There won't be any restructuring without the legacy costs being dealt with," Gary Hubbard, a spokesman for the United Steelworkers of America labor union, said yesterday.

Regina N. WhitefordBel Air residentRegina N. Whiteford, a resident of Harford County for many years, died Sunday of pneumonia at Fallston General Hospital.Mrs. Whiteford, who was 58, had lived in Bel Air since 1980 and in Whiteford from the late 1950s until 1973.The former Regina Novak was a native of Baltimore and a graduate of the Catholic High School.She and her husband, Dr. Edwin W. Whiteford, medical director for the Martin Marietta Corp. at Middle River and a colonel in the Maryland Air National Guard, lived in Tempe, Ariz.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Every breath of life in this city is still drawn in the shadows of The Steel. Not just on the south side, where streets dead-end at the giant blackened carcass of a once-great steel mill. But everywhere. In the parks, the country clubs, the office tower, the university, the hotel, the hospital, city hall - The Steel built them all. And so two remarkable things happened in Bethlehem last week. The Steel went bankrupt. And no one cared. This city, built by the fortunes of the manufacturing-age giant that shares its name, has learned to live without Bethlehem Steel.

When Lynn Beattie decided to build a house, she began to research all the various decisions that would have to be made during the process. One seminar she attended mentioned the growing problem of finding quality lumber. And then it dawned on her. "I thought, they build steel buildings every day, so why don't they build homes out of steel," Beattie asked. "The speaker was talking about how the quality of wood was not what it used to be, and I decided I wanted something solid." Beattie made her decision after attending yet another seminar, this one hosted by Tri-Steel Structures Inc., a Texas-based manufacturer of steel-frame homes.