Those damn environmental regulations! How's are we gonna make the air smell like sulphur and all the fish poisonous if we can't continue to dump tons of sht into the environment!?!
ESOP WAS A BIG JOKE.... at the time when I worked in open hearth my steward which was on the ISU FAKE UINION said we would get larger payday checks and quarterly checks... We took all those buses to Washington DC for nothing!! Only one who made money was that Union Hall on West street.. Marky G is the reason the mill is now closed in 2024. WHEN MARKY G WON THE ISU PRESIDENT EVERYTHING WENT DOWN HILL! Great job Marky! You're the reason the mill is closed!
OMG I remember this. Those homes and everything else close were ravished with smoke and soot. I believe there was a lawsuit against the owners and the demolition contractors.
The Weirton ESOP was a good example of how spoon fed, targeted propaganda has been adeptly used at economic, social and political levels, to get Americans to think and believe in 'Fairy tales.' Fast forward to 2023, and recall unfortunately, how propaganda has been continued to be used, as it has been perfected to a fine art.
What a fantastic look at Christmas past in Weirton. I truly enjoyed this heartwarming and very nicely produced video. Thank you for sharing this wonderful look into the past.
I Would Like to Say Thank You and Also My Family Is From Weirton, WV and Steubenville, OH 😊 and I Appreciate The History And It’s Nostalgic To Watch This Im Areas My Grandad Lived and Had a House Overlooking The Weirton Steel Mill ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
This video is pretty well done. I would have liked to had more information about the buildings on Orchard Street, including the various additions; what happened to them after the junior high was removed to the main campus; when and under what circumstances they were razed; what happened to the cornerstone and door stones from the two buildings.
IF only the government of West Virginia will have installments on TAXES; be lenient to all; tax exemptions to both resident and incoming residents; then, West Virginia will bloom again. IF they will NOT ease up; then, they like to CLOSE West Virginia for good. A pity. We can and we can still do this. I BELIEVE!
I attended a game between Weirton and Toronto in 1962 when Fritz William's played. Toronto's star was Chipper Coulter who Weirton had 4 men guard. Weirton won by about 15 points in a competitive game because of the excellence of Fritz's skills. Terry Olbrysh
Super sad to see such a monument to American and Weirton history simply demolished without a care for the future preservation for generations to come. My Grandfather, Joseph Robert Gazia, graduated Weir High School in 1950; was employed as a pipe fitter at Weirton Steel Corp where he fitted pipes at the mill. In 2010, he passed away from lung cancer even though he was not a smoker, no doubt it was caused by the years of asbestos insulation exposure on pipes. Our family did not care because the Mill took care of him and his family long long after it was closed. Even though the mill killed him prematurely it provided economic success to our family and he would be proud to know that he has 9 grandchildren today.
Now its almost 70 years later, the Mill is mostly torn down.....many of the people in the video have passed away.....the ones left have had their pensions and healthcare plan gutted.....while the likes of Wilbur Ross and others reaped the benefits of their sweat and hard work. Double shifts in the Mill in a raging summer heat to get the braces for the kids, a new car or maybe even a new house. They saw a bright future back then as they marched down main street as it cut through the heart of the Mill while inhaling the graphite and soot....passing by brown stained buildings, and I'm guessing the future did shine from a distance then......now its gone and extinguished, and never coming back.
I was layed off for 4an three quarters years!..an even lost my recall rights..but got called back !!..years later I got my my time back..from the Union suit! I had two Lockers in just about every part of the mill one for dirty clothes one for clean clothes except the General Offices an he half moon!.. I had a key chain at home and everything marked so I could keep track of the keys to my lockers !!..lol !!..!!..sometimes every two weeks I would be in a totally different divisions of the mill !..if iwant to keep my job !!..I was always layed off an on !!. Hired1978... 3 Years After High School that was the biggest mistake of my life !!..I should have went right in After High School !!.i would have still been working to this day !!..but I decided to manage my father's gas stations in Stead .3 in Weirton...that experience was well worth it in my life !!..
Weirton has one of the lowest crime rates in America. I keep hearing they have a Meth problem. Let me let you in on a little secret....They are decades behind the rest of America.
Just another failure that Marg G has on his resume!!! Under his watch as union president thousands of men and woman lost their jobs!! Way to Go former ISU guy!!!!
Sad to see another mill gone in our country. When will it stop. We've lost our middle class thruout America because of free trade pacts that take away our manufacturing jobs, leaving behind poverty wage jobs. End free trade before it ends America.
I miss my hometown. I left because I was laid off from the mill. Our own politicians figured China and Whoever' could make Steel CHEAPER! The Democrats gave away our jobs 'but they could sure talk pretty! My Grandfather worked for Weirton Steel as well my father Luke! Bye the time I got there in August 1978. The shit was already starting to hit the fan! I worked in the Cinder plant , Blast furnace' blooming mill, bop, sheet mill! I really enjoyed working for Weirton Steel! It made Man Out of Me! Forever grateful, and honored to be a former Citizen of Weirton! And a former employee of The Best Little Steel Mill in America!
The jobs were given away by the people that owned the company and the shareholders and the controlling board of directors of it that made a decision NOT to modernize and invest in the mill and bring it back to modern steel making methods and standards. Democrats had nothing to do with it. Its never going to be 1968 again. I also grew up there and made a decision at a young age to get out and go to college and get an engineering degree, anybody else could have done the same. I don't like being the mill gone, but its not ever coming back to the scale it was. Those days are gone and even Trump can't make them come back.
Mark Tomasovich, NAFTA took some away but generated new jobs as well in other sectors. Go to the House website and look up the actual bill, you will see that lots of people voted for it in the house and senate. That list will include plenty of republicans, in fact the GOP controlled the House starting in 1994. Like I said, companies exist to make profits not to keep people employed. If they can cut costs and increase revenue they will. That’s economics. They made a decision the BOP and blast furnaces were too old to update, so they got torn down and the land was sold off. The days of working for an industrial plant for life in the same town you grew up in and getting a pension with health benefits after 35 years of service for life are over as well. Nobody, including Trump, can make that happen again. Our fathers and grandfathers and uncles had a good life in the mill and provided for us even as they worked double shifts in summer heat and lots of times we never saw them growing up. I’m glad they did all that for us, but it’s over.
Same thing happened in lorain Ohio, we've lost all of our manufacturing jobs. Massive plants that employed thousands are gone because of our government signing free trade pacts. Our town went to hell. Our steel mill employed 12,000 at one time and ran for over 100years only to be shut down in 2016 for good.
Don't forget all those domestic EAF "mini-mills" contributed to the demise of not only this integrated steel mill, but plenty of others throughout the "rust belt" in the U.S.
