During the presidential race, both sides declared opposition to a pending sale of legacy steelmaker U.S. Steel to Japan-based Nippon. The United Steelworkers and Rust Belt politicians on both sides of the aisle have pre-cast Nay votes on the would-be sale as well, but they’re all wrong.
U.S. Steel has been limping along for decades and before the Japanese were poised to buy it, the Russians were, many years back. U.S. Steel needs to be bought for an infusion of self-awareness, which Nippon would likely provide.
U.S. Steel hasn’t been the nation’s largest steelmaker for a long time, and may never be again. I’m personally and professionally familiar with the rise and fall of its fortunes being a reporter in Pittsburgh—my dad and great-uncle both worked for the company. I’ve also written about the steel industry a lot over decades of business reporting.
Long ago, perhaps even before its collapse into itself in the 1980s when the company laid off more than 90 percent of its white-collar workforce, U.S. Steel lost itself. It forgot what it did, what its role was to some extent, and also what it had accomplished. It’s made many false starts, including calling itself USX and getting into the oil business, and years back, saying it would spend $1 billion to clean up its coke works in Clairton, PA (a perennial clean air violator), but then reneged on that decision.
As a kid from the generation of teenagers who saw our parents and their neighbors hurt by the loss of the once-mighty steel industry, I always had questions about why it happened. It seemed unfathomable that a giant corporation could make so many mistakes for so long that it imploded. About 15 years ago I got some answers from a former U.S. Steel engineer who’d been a colleague of my dad.
We were sitting in the storied old Western Pennsylvania Engineers Society in its brownstone building in downtown Pittsburgh, but the charm of the place was sullied by several big screen TVs, giving the old dining room a rather sports bar feel. But it was nearly empty for lunch, and I got to talk with this guy about U.S. Steel’s demise, since he was working for them when it happened.
So how’d they blow it, I asked.
“Dumb, fat, and happy is what happened to U.S. Steel,” he said.
I’d say dumb fat and happy may still be U.S. Steel’s problem, based partly on my experience over the last couple years while researching weathering steel (which becomes weathered for years after exposure on a building and basically pickles itself), and specifically, Corten steel, a type of weathering steel which U.S. Steel invented. A few years back I got interested in the increasingly omnipresent rusted steel look that you see on everything from office buildings to apartment complexes to commercial buildings and urban homes, wondering why we like it. Part of my fascination with it was I realized I really liked this look in general, and I didn’t know why, since I hadn’t been a fan of the Corten exterior of the U.S. Steel Tower where my dad worked when I was a kid.
Somehow, I’d grown to like that rusty look. To sum that up: I believe nostalgia (and a desire for what appears “natural” or rustic) is why we like that look, it’s why we trust rust. It’s a look that U.S. Steel invented, though many of the examples of rusty steel on buildings you see may not actually be weathering steel. Corten is pricier.
U.S. Steel invented that look, when it created Corten steel for rail cars in the 1930s, though it wasn’t really until the 1960s that Corten began to be used widely as a building material. The first huge office building using Corten was the John Deere headquarters. In 1971, U. S. Steel was so proud of Corten that it built its headquarters in Pittsburgh with it to show it off.
The “Steel Building” as we used to call the U.S. Steel Tower (long ago sold by U.S. Steel), has aged well and is a beautiful old dame. But rather sadly, it’s being converted partly to residential use, like other old buildings downtown which have already been converted.
That rusty look aesthetic we now see everywhere in America, and it’s hotter than ever—even used for pricey backyard firepits, big outside stoves, and other flair furnishings, in addition to being increasingly used as accents or structural elements in new homes. It’s U.S. Steel’s legacy, all but forgotten by the company. A couple years ago. I called a U.S. Steel flack I’d spoken with many times for other stories, and asked him if they still manufactured Corten.
“We still own the patent for it, and we sell it, but we don’t make it,” he said, sounding sad.
U.S. Steel forgot who it was. Selling its own Corten, but forged by Asian steelmakers, rather than manufacturing it here and marketing that iconic connection? Loss of soul.
They could learn from their former subsidiary, American Bridge Company. That firm was sold by U.S. Steel in the 1980s and subsequently sold several times before the Ing Family Trust of Taiwan bought it. They held onto it and developed its marina business and with the help of many experienced American workers, made it profitable. American Bridge was sold several years ago to a big American firm.
About 30 or so years ago when I was living in Pittsburgh’s South Side, I was amazed that the rock band Rusted Root, who’d become rather famous and whose members I knew from working with them years before as a fellow bike messenger for Triangle Messenger Service in South Side, had bought a local defunct firehouse for their rehearsals. Why would they do that, I wondered aloud to an artist friend.
“Maybe they want to keep their roots rusted,” my friend said.
U.S. Steel forgot about its rust, and its roots. Its sale to a more competent company might be the only thing that will bring U.S. Steel back to knowing itself.
Lifelong Pittsburgher Jonathan Barnes is a freelance journalist and tech writer with 30 years of journalism experience. A former American Society of Business Press Editors (Azbee) award-winning correspondent for Engineering News-Record (ENR) for 20 years, he’s also written about construction for various architecture engineering and construction (AEC) firms and publications, including American Bridge Company, Michael Baker International, Procore, Rhumbix, xyHt magazine, GeoWeek, ARC Document Solutions, Cadalyst, Rhumbix, Fieldwire, Smartbuild and many others.
image, Pixabay license.
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