Clairton accident shows perils of steel jobs
Inside U.S. Steel's Clairton Works, human scale gets lost.
Workers measure weight in tons, temperature in thousands of degrees. They climb multi-story ovens, feed fires hot enough to burn impurities from coal and fix 4-foot-wide pipes full of unbreathable, explosive air. From their ovens comes the bedrock of industry, the spines of skyscrapers and rail networks.
When something goes wrong, such as last week's explosion in B Battery, it bends steel and blows aside men and stone walls.
Veterans tell rookies to get a good night's sleep and to tell their kids they love them before walking out the door.
The United States could give up this sweltering, perilous work "if you want to give up your car and live in a cave," said Raymond Ross, a maintenance worker who has spent 15 years at Clairton Works. Police work is dangerous as well, said Ross, 50, of Carrick. "Are we going to stop having them?"
Decades of economic decline eroded the presence of steelmaking in Western Pennsylvania. So-called mini mills in the South and Midwest, and larger plants in China and elsewhere, replaced the giant mills that once lined the three rivers, said Charles Bradford, an industry analyst with Affiliated Research Group in New York.
While shopping malls, office parks and overgrown fields replaced most of the region's sprawling plants, the Mon Valley Works -- of which the Clairton Plant is a part -- survives. One out of every 100 iron and steel mill workers in the country works at the Clairton Plant, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. No place in the country produces more coke, the fuel for blast furnaces.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the plant for violations five times in the past eight years, but minor violations like those bear no relation to major accidents such as Wednesday's explosion, said Michael Wright, director of health, safety and environment for the United Steelworkers of America union.
"Every plant has strains, sprains, trips and falls, but there is no correlation between those day-to-day accidents and real safety," Wright said. "Clearly, something failed in this case.
"It's hard to measure the risk," he said. "It's like trying to determine the risk of airplane crash by investigating injuries to baggage handlers."
Workers at the plant say U.S. Steel emphasizes safety, including making employees read safety brochures at the start of each shift. Whether they pay attention or just skim through is up to each worker, Ross said.
"It's what you make of it," Ross said, adding that it's one of the few places someone with a high school education can still earn a good living. Steel mill workers earn $20 an hour, on average, compared with $12.44 per hour among all hourly workers and $18.24 among union workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Though domestic steel production continues to decline -- the United States produced less than one-fifth as much steel as China in 2008 -- the industry remains prominent in Western Pennsylvania, said Bruce Steiner, president of the American Coke and Coal Chemicals Institute, a Washington-based organization that represents companies in the industries.
"I'd say it's still the dominant coke-making center," Steiner said. "Definitely, in terms of total tonnage produced, that region is important for the U.S. industry."
Wednesday's explosion likely won't have much influence on the steel-making industry, even though Clairton Works is the country's largest coke production facility, Bradford said. Most mills keep a coke reserve, and U.S. Steel plans to resume coke production at the exploded battery within a week. The eight other active batteries at the plant stayed online through the week.
For employees like Ross, who still proclaim the work ethic that gave this region a few generations' worth of bragging rights, the thought of not coming in to work the next day never crossed their minds.
"I like the place. You're producing something," Ross said. "You hear guys whining, 'It's too hot,' or 'It's too cold,' or 'It's too wet.' Shut the hell up, and get to work."
