Bethlehem Steel, The People Who Built America

[darthvader5300]

If only Bethlehem Steel had used the LTC Karrick Process as part of it's steel making industrial process then it can use the much hotter semi-char, used the by-product oil to stoke the blast furnaces, used the high energy coal gas to fire the open hearth furnace, and use the co-generated electricity to run it's electrical and electronic systems, especially when it is retrofitted with computerized robot-driven automation to streamline operations to reduce costs.

[mrearlygold]

Enjoy your socialism and sticking guns in peoples faces around the world. What goes around is coming back around and it will never be the same again.

[DamnStraightM35A2]

He's furious that he can't retire at 50? Come on! Common worker in America can retire at 50, so why did he expect it? They all knew that BS was out of money. Too lazy to work until your 62? Get over it!

[notalott]

@DamnStraightM35A2 working a different shift every week, sometimes working all three shifts in one week, working through holiday, birthdays and events, working around 2000 degree heat, working around defeaning noise, tons and tons of moving equipment, i can see why 30 years might be enough.. the turn of events was tragic, and there was blame enough for all parties involved. without a doubt tho, working in a steel mill was no walk in the park.

[userunavailable3095]

Great, let's borrow more money from China to put in park benches and museums. Do you realize that those park benches and museums are shackles around the necks of your children? How much longer do you think the Chinese are going to continue to allow us to borrow their money to buy their junk? Unless we can get some kind of manufacturing up and running again, we will be slaves to a nation who does not value the environment, or human life, or basic rights.

[thysonle]

This is a very rewarding film about the steel industry for you. We want to have the subtitles when the download is complete so that more people understand

[EJStratMan1]

I don't live too far away from Bethlehem Steel, and everytime I go by i get the chills. Honestly an amzing place in its time.

[blackmale78]

I love being from PA!!!

[samoslav01]

anyone have subtitles for the film?

[PBS39]

Sorry we do not.

[chris33661]

Thats bull shiet.The USA was built by Irish and Polish people not juish !!!!

[stackdb]

The older guy at the end really gets to me. "It's gone, I can't believe it's gone." Pretty much sums up the American Century. We had our time, but it is over. Enter China and Korea, the monoliths of the 21st century. Gone are the days when a hard working guy could make a great living as a Steel Mill worker in Bethlehem or Pittsburgh, or as an auto worker in Detroit.

Good bye Bethlehem Steel and U.S. Steel and GM. With it goes the American Dream as we knew it.

[SUBWAY125]

In Lyons Station, NJ, I saw a rail on the RR Tracks and on the side said "BETHLEHEM STEEL 2001". Good times

[translationwiz]

They ganged up on Beth......THe city, then the politicians a separate personal take, the state, the unions.....everybody had their hands out. Beth. did make tons of money as they did steel.

[Bassfanatic94]

I live in Pennsylvania and traveled to Bethlehem to play a travel hockey team that was there. The hockey rink was right next to the old steel mills. It was stunning how big the mills were. It is so spooky the area around the mill. The steel mills and the warehouses are all empty, but each tell a story full of history. Many people don't appreciate the importance of this company.

[Baileygeep7]

Isn't it interesting to note the typical policies of the economically stupid liberal democrat party are why these idiots are out of work, and they don't even know it, ....pbs, hah, they'd be just a pathetic democrat party joke if they weren't sucking on govt money handouts to spread this democrat shit under the guise of journalism, pravda parasites.

[Baileygeep7]

The union clown at 28:30 should admit his job was that of a parasite sucking money out of the workers and the company, GM is now run by democrat party, leftist bolsheviks and they are demanding that new hires work for half what their predecessors got, even the communists realize these union wages and benefits are whats the problem.

[westonsz]

What is sad is the working people get taken to the woodshed and atleast they were doing something for the money while the corporate people who spend most of their time goofing off or on vacation while looting the company just move on to the next U.S. company to loot. American executives truly are the worst in the world. If anything needs outsourcing it is U.S. executives. The work they do for the salaries they make is not very competitive.

[IncyIncubator]

Inane comments. Great video.

[falldownhard]

@IncyIncubator Agreed. I grew up in Ohio in the 1970s and I still have affection for the old industrial towns. Sure the unions became corrupted later like any bureaucracy, but the loss of these heavy industry jobs started this country down the hill. I thank the early unions every day for the fact that I have any benefits at all - now all the wealth is shifting back to a few corrupt people who whine about having to give the peons anything and have no incentive to keep any jobs at home.

[maidenamerica814]

Dachau in Germany had no crematoriums with the Bethlehem Steel insignia in it or on it. That [ is ] a first person acct. from a visit in 1994. 

[Napoleon1Blownapart]

These union employees can cry, whine, piss and moan all they want. Their unions as well as themselves are responsible for Bethlehem going bankrupt. These people have the audacity to think they can get a company funded retirement after working 30 years? Fund your own retirement like the rest of us. Same story with the auto industry-more greedy union workers wanting to get paid magnificently for doing nothing. If I were the CEO's of these companies, I would fire the whole damned workforce.

[pkrjunkie]

wash my back lol 

[assassin7707]

no wonder the towers fell

[PBS39]

If you repost without the "Moron" or "Dumb Shit" I'll approve. We really don't like personal slams, lessons from Mr. Rogers

Thanks

Bill Ziegler, Tech Admin, PBS39

[hammocktime2002]

@PBS39 Bill, go back to your kayaking or whatever you do and stop violating my first amendment rights

[shomaneture]

Enslaved Africans free labor built America!!!!

[hammocktime2002]

@shomaneture Prove it

[francais197]

The ghosts of full employment encapsulated in the view of a disused Steel mill,

[paulabo123]

greatings from the ruhr valley

[at1212b]

Look, no offense to anybody, but this entitled notion bc your dad worked there (which again, you get in due to connections) is what is NOT Right about the principles of the US. That's what happens.. it is not sustainable.

[darthvader5300]

All these technologies existed in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. If Bethlehem Steel have just retooled and re-engineered it's facilities it will still be existing today.

[darthvader5300]

Bethlehem Steel should have replaced the blast furnace wt the reduction furnace and electric arc furnace to produce the crude pig iron in less than 1 to 2 or 3 hrs and transform it into refined steels of all kinds in a BOP furnace in 30 to 40 minutes.

[darthvader5300]

The electric arc furnace orignally is used to melt, refine, alloy-mix reduced metallized iron ore and/or scrap in 6 to 8 hours. But this time it is to be used only melt the solid charge into a crude molten iron in less than 2-4 hours, and process it in a BOP furnace transforming it into refined carbon or alloy steels, then pour in a continous casting machine transforming it into blooms, billets, slabs, plates, sheets, H and I beams, rebars, etc.

[darthvader5300]

The problem with Bethlehem Steel is that it failed to adopt to innovations that could have saved it from global imported competition. One idea is to use a vertically integrated combined system of iron ore reduction furnace, electric arc furnace, BOP furnace, and continous casting.

[anynameplease]

@darthvader5300 It didn't help much that all those patriotic flag waving people that cry on Sept. 11th that buy foreign products. All those cheap products that people bought from the 50s through 2000s aren't so cheap today now that you've lost your high paying job to somebody in a 3rd world country? Buy US made goldtoe socks, check quality, now buy a bag of any brand Chinese made socks. The Chinese socks are not only uncomfortable, but they also fall apart as you pull them out of the bag!

[darthvader5300]

Replace the blast furnace with a combined integrated system of iron ore reduction furnace and electric arc furnace. The iron ore is metallized and is mixed with limestone and/or silica as a flux, and coke and is charged into an electric arc furnace to turn it into a molten mass of crude iron and is refined in alloyed and plain carbon steels in a BOP furnace. This way should have been done in the past 40s and 50s and Bethlehem will still be around.

[citydefender1235]

It sounds like Bethlehem Steel was 'too big to fail'

[citydefender1235]

@NERDkingHERE Too much management and an inability to adapt to change took down the steel. The economic growth of the losers of the war was much faster than the winners simply because the long-term vested interests and lobbies did not exist and the industries in those countries could start fresh, adopting the best practices of the time. The unions demanded breaks, safety equipment, medical for injured workers and vacation when the laws of the land did not protect the workers who 'built America'

[SebastianEngland]

@BANDIT62 I'm assuming you mean you serve in the military of a non-English speaking country, right? Because with your grasp of the language I'm a-tinkin' it's NOT the USA.

[2fanradio]

bethlehem steel is dangerous for eyes,weldind-electric welding is very dangerous for eyes,is good ,bethlehem steel is closed,is very good for eyes,because is very,very,very,very dangerous for eyes,and electric welding.

[NERDkingHERE]

Unions Destroyed America

[westonsz]

Keep believing the lying congressmen about the free trade policy that has cost this country close to ten million jobs. The economy we have now is the new normal thanks to the worthless, useless lying lawyers who run this country. We should not have to pay taxes to support these bums and the greedy lifestyles they live.

[DeerCountry2012]

i miss the steel now they build a casino come on.

[BANDIT62]

my dad and my grandfather work for bethlehem steel they also served in the military like me god bless america. I'm i'm ashahmed of the dems and the repu they have no clue whats happen in this country.

[WWWNIBTORQUECOM]

I currently sell tools to the Bethlehem sparrows point plant, I have been all over that plant, and its huge!!

Its owned by the russians now, and still running. I used to live in allentown. I wish I was around when bethlehem was around. I was a gold caddy at Saucon Valley Country club for 9 years, and remember the executives on the golf course. Bethlehem execs had their own gold carts with stell logos on them, and had very elaborate parties there. The execs would pay like 2x as much as others!

[theevilm1]

my daddy used to work there now he works at leghhigh heavy forge

[MrHarry46]

yeah and IBM built the mechanical computers the nazis used to keep tally of the jews they slaughtered and ...

Pepsi kept them from going thirsty!! (Fanta)

a host of us corporations sold Hitler a raft of goods to help build his war machine

Yeah blame the Unions when its YOUR GOVERNMENT who you are too chickenshit to reign in (that would mean you getting up off your fat ass and fighting for something real) that sends your tax dollars overseas to prop up foreign dictatorships

[sw8741]

i find it ironic that while huge corporations like bethlehem steel are up and running, liberals and their union pals blame corporations for all sorts of evil, then when the corporations are dead and gone, they idealize them! although unions weren't the only cause of bethelehems demise, they were a huge portion of it. when ever a company is forced to make promises that can't be kept, it will fail. now we have an administration making huge promises that can't be kept. liberals never learn

[ironken]

save your Right wing Republican drivel. Corporate greed has served this country well hasn't it? 8 years of Bush......speaks for itself.

[12valvepower1]

montana. steel mill is owned by norilsk nickel. mother norilsk

[seanbirmingham21]

it goes beyond the realm of impossible to even suggest that an American steel company would fabricate doors for a crematorium. Germany had several steel facilities throughout the country that could easily fulfill the needs of the Nazi war machine. And the misinformed baloney that unions destroyed the steel industry is also false!!!! There were a number of factors that contributed to its demise.

[iBigEbALLs]

Why do the cast iron doors on some of the Nazi crematoriums have Bethlehem Steel cast into them?

[PBS39]

If you've seen them and that's what they say on them, I cannot argue with eyewitness accounts and I have no explanation other than they (BS) must have made doors for crematoriums in general. Did they specifically make them for Bukenvauld knowing that they were to be used to kill Jews, I would highly doubt.

[iBigEbALLs]

Is this the company that built the cremetoriums for the Nazis?

[PBS39]

No, it's not

[iBigEbALLs]

Are you 100% sure of that?

[PBS39]

It's totally plausible that they could have been exported prior to the war. I would like to give in those in power during that time the benefit of the doubt that there was no collusion with Hitler to exterminate Jews. I'd be very disappointed if it were not the case

[CircusMaximus09]

Steel built the US; UNIONS took it down

[ironken]

Unions built the US, greedy Republicans took it down.

[moronpaul]

"Unions built the US, greedy Republicans took it down."

So the first thing Bill Gates and Steve Jobs said when they started their companies (Microsoft/Apple) was: We have to Unionize right away!!!!

[jb1of7]

Business entrepeneurs built America; Greedy unions took it down...

[CircusMaximus09]

The greedy unions took it down. When should a janitor (nonproducer) make more than an engineer ????

[pghcc2006]

@ironken Carnegie, DuPont, Rockefeller, Ford, Durant, Penny, Chrysler, Boeing, Walton etc, made the U.S. what is WAS before we abandoned Social Darwinism. China has the same economic philosophy we had in the 1870s-1920s which is why the world belongs to 20 somethings in Beijing and Shenzhen, not 22 yr like me here in the States.

[sds1855]

@ironken americans built the usa unions destroyed it

[shananagans5]

ironken: The unions got out of hand. There was a time when unions protected abused workers but they got to big, to powerfull and choked off the industrys they worked for.

[safetyvlv]

@CircusMaximus09 Smoke another big fatty pal, weren't you listening? The union was partially to blame as was management, the fact new technology was not incorporated, and finally the single biggest fact (in my mind) CUT THROAT ECONOMICS= CHEAP QUALITY CHINESE STEEL.

[BioHunter1990]

@CircusMaximus09 You have no idea how much I agree with you. From coast to coast...and across the globe Bethlehem Steel Co BUILT this nation, and by doing so...built the world. From Liberty Ships to things like the Golden Gate Bridge...It's an absolute bitter shame that the USW ran that company into their grave face down, throat slit and unmarked, and trampled by horse to hide their grave.

[N9155E]

28:54 this could be GM as well...

[wthjrtx1]

I went to mill wright school. Missed the oil fields. Reynolds aluminum pulled out of my hometown, The down sizing or our military .Nucor came in. I built several mills and worked in several more.

Very good show. Very good comments.

But i am very proud of my work in the mills.

I set ,Dialed in to turn key and problem solved all the eqiupment in all these mills.

Got offers from all over to work.

We gave the industry away. Sorry we did.

Very dangerous, Pure adrenaline.

May God Bless us

[flyingjay49]

Hello fellow lube techs.

I'm speaking for us lube tech out there we as of lube tech that do our job as changing peoples cars and trucks suv and so on. we need to stand for our rights doing our job at we our rights seam that the upper management do not care for who we are. it is time that we as people that do the daily work of oil changes for the people we have rights time to go union and and tell our upper management to give us rights on who we are go union

[alexi626]

And to think... Now it's a casino.... No one in the 40's could have imagined that!

[shumirules1]

hey i was told after 9 11 you cant melt steel with fire this video must be fake lol

[PBS39]

If you remember the fire protective coating on the beams was blow off from the impact explosion, then after that they heated and bent causing them to twist and collapse

[PANAMArudeBUAY]

i remember my family telling me about that steel coming threw the panama canal

[tktrepid2]

sweet video, nice learning about where you come from.

[TomKatTV]

It's a shame the Govt. didn't bail the Steel out when it was failing.

Had they exposed managements back practices maybe some of them would still be doing time. I'd rather see the Steel working than a slots casino.

Thanks PBS39. I have this on tape and love it. Great work.

[shumirules1]

bailout the goverment help rebuild the steel industy in japan and germany after ww2.

[4hsoprano]

I grew up in Easton and It's a shame to know Bethlehem Steel is being torn down :(

[v8stanguy04]

I am 19 years old and following in both my grandparents and father in the steel mills of east chicago. This film is awesome and truly shows the heart of all the men who work in the mills all over the country

[hritz77]

where can I buy a copy of this?

[PBS39]

Contact us at 610-984-8100

[JFIGYADIG]

ha bethlahem i grew up 5 minits from there.

liberty stand up.

freedom sux.

uhm.

5 points

pbc

a&r and all

fuck kp

[JYDIVISN]

Looks like you learned a lot at Liberty... "Bethlahem"

[JFIGYADIG]

nah lolz i got kicked outa that wack ass school.

[kennycook1990]

bethlehem wasnt a union so know what you are talking about before you talk

[HammockTimeNow]

WTF...so you worked there? Read, kiddie...the Steelworkers' Union was there

[liobeking]

I have watched the whole movie, thanks for posting.

[AstronautGrasshopper]

Me and my dad drove all the way from Asheville NC to Bethlehem to see the Blast Furnaces, cuz i'm a nutty Transformers fan and hadn't gone on a vacation the whole summer. That place was amazing! I had no idea there was so much history behind Bethlehem Steel until I got to go there and see it myself. I don't like that they're going to tear down another of the blast furnaces and build a casino right next to the place. There goes the neighborhood.

[DaColt88]

my grandfather use to work at Bethlehem, it was good money, my dad worked there for a short time, he told me it was good money, but there was all these stories about guys falling into the maulted metal and never coming back

[alnot01]

Economically, Bethelhem was doomed. An established company with many unionized retirees could not compete with the minimills, who were both nonunion and too new to have any retirees. Foreign steel companies did not have to cover the cost of health and retirement benefits. Such benefits were either provided to all by a foreign government (Europe), or simply did not exist (Third World). The Depression excepted, BS had it easy until the 1970s, and management became very complacent.

[alnot01]

I went to high school with the children and nephews of several of the talking heads in this documentary. I worked for the Steel for 13 months in the 70s. The work was very hard and the pay was not superb. A few coworkers told me that the company was doomed because Japanese steel was steadily improving, and because continuous casting was not possible. The vacation package was too generous. The company was complacent and bureaucratic, but that did not influence day to day work in my shop.

[hammocktime2002]

The pay was HUGE thanks to the unions! There was no money to reinvest in the technology...so it went down the tubes. I was born and raised in Bethlehem, Lehigh educated and saw it all...shame...shame

[Ironhand09]

I don't like unions either but at the time they were formed they were needed. If they had done their work then disolved it would have been fine. They didn't and ended up ruining a lot of American industry.

[Duseldorf1103]

I'm very glad they are filming transformers there now! I hope that complex forever stands! I love driving by and seeing the blast furnaces!

[coolcat101048]

I have friends that are going to be extras in the Bethlehem Steel scene. Its awesome that the movie is being filmed there.

[Moravian09]

Built the country from Bethlehem, sad that it's gone, the grand old lady of Bethlehem, the good ol' days...we can only hope the future of bethlehem is as bright as its past was.

[hammocktime2002]

The steel would not have gone down if it weren't for the greedy unions

[spotto720]

Hammocktime, the unions were greedy but remember, a contract is negotiated between the company and the the union. Nobody held a gun to leadership of Beth Steel when they signed on the dotted line.

Foreign steel dumping in the USA in the late 70's and "80's did not help either.

[coolcat101048]

YAY! I can use this for my Social Studies essay!

I'm sooo happy!!!

[Duseldorf1103]

YAY! I can walk there! YAYYY!

[hector860]

I injoy it watching this

[marcusreedus]

that is a truly amazing tribute to a truly amazing company! bravo!