A Crisis in Basic Steel

The crisis in the American steel industry is not the one we read about. The steel corporations’ pleas for protection from foreign imports mask an effort to wrest lucrative tax and environmental concessions from Washington, and the Carter White House seems eager to please and avoid a confrontation that would label it “antibusiness.” So the real crisis in the steel industry is the one being experienced by the families of more than 25,000 ex-steelworkers. And the inability of either the government or the steelworkers themselves to mobilize an effective response to the companies’ actions creates a moral crisis for us all.

Summer and fall of 1977 were disastrous for the nation’s steelworkers: Bethlehem Ste...