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In the summer of 1982, everyone thought the mill layoffs would be temporary. After all, layoffs happened a time or two in the 1970s, perhaps for less than a month, so nobody was really worried at first. Heck, around Christmas of 1981, my dad's boss came around to his shop floor and told the workers not to worry about losing their jobs in the recession because a large order was "just around the corner" that would keep everyone fat and happy for a long time to come. I wonder how many other steelworkers in Pittsburgh had that smoke blown up their bums, because even late into the 1980s, many people around here kept thinking "the jobs will come back, the jobs will come back." Yet they didn't.
When my dad was laid off that summer 29 years ago, lots of other dads were, too, oblivious to the disaster unfolding before their eyes. Many families unwisely took expensive vacations, not realizing they'd need that money later. Our uneasy summer slid too quickly into autumn, and before most steelworkers realized it, they had drawn more than half their UC benefits. The worst was yet to come.
The winter of 1982–1983 was probably the bleakest time I can remember. As you can expect, there weren't too many Christmas presents, and blocks of government cheese were what most families wanted from Santa. Long before this point, my dad saw the writing on the wall and was applying for machinist and mechanic jobs everywhere in the Pittsburgh area. Oh, sometimes he'd get a one-week stint here or there to fill in for a vacationing worker, but he got nothing permanent. Nonetheless, I have to give him all the credit in the world. He kept trying, and in May of 1983, he started work for the Army Corps of Engineers on a local lock and dam. He retired from that job in 2005.
In the summer of 1983, people started to leave my steel mill town in droves. Despair ran rampant. Some steelworker dads laid off more than a year killed themselves. To fully appreciate just how badly my town was ripped to shreds, consider the graduation rate of high school seniors. In 1979, the high school graduated well over 300 students. When I graduated in 1985, there were 117 of us. Graduating classes were well under 100 before the end of the 1980s.
I had my own layoff experience three years ago. I was denied unemployment compensation at first and had to fight like hell to get it. It took me 10 months to get another permanent job (and during the banking implosion, no less), but I have to say that I learned everything about fighting for my livelihood from my dad during that long, dark period in the early 1980s. When I read stories of people being torn apart from long-term unemployment, I know exactly where they're at and have all the sympathy in the world for them. And if I ever see anyone of my Facebook friends from my hometown talk down about 99ers, well, let's just say I have a nice long talk with them to remind them about days gone by.
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