Story

Published: Sunday, September 16, 2007

By DON SHILLING

VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR

TWO WORDS REVIVE THE
shock and anger of the most
devastating day in Mahoning Valley history:

Black Monday.

"Good Lord," Al Magrini of Boardman remembers saying as he walked out of Youngstown Sheet & Tube on Sept. 19, 1977. "Where are we going to find jobs like these again?"

Thirty years later, the foreboding nickname has proved well-deserved.

Sheet & Tube announced that it was closing its Campbell Works and moving corporate headquarters from Boardman to the Chicago area and eliminating 5,000 jobs.

Magrini's question — where will we find work like this again? — would be repeated many times in coming years. Black Monday was the beginning of the end for Youngstown as a steel-making center.

Within several years, other mills went down.

Thousands more steel jobs were lost.

But as those steelworkers reflect on the 30th anniversary of Black Monday this week, they don't dwell on the shock and despair of that day. Instead, they talk of how they survived.

Some, like Magrini, feel fortunate.

He was collecting unemployment for three weeks after leaving Sheet & Tube when the phone rang.

He moved on

"I was sitting here stewing in my own sorrows when my friend called and said they were hiring at Sawhill," Magrini said.

By January 1978, he was operating a slitting machine at the Sawhill Tubular pipe mill in Sharon. Twenty other Sheet & Tube workers joined him.

"I was one of the fortune ones," Magrini said.

The Sawhill mill was producing the same pipe that an operation at Sheet & Tube was making, yet Sawhill was booming. Workers were on the job six or seven days a week.

"I never made so much money," Magrini said.

The Sharon mill, which later became part of Wheatland Tube, closed recently. Now 67, Magrini retired after an injury in 2001 with 23 years at that mill. Because he retired at age 60, he received a reduced pension — $130 a month — from the federal agency that took over Sheet & Tube's pension plan.

Bob Thompson, who also lost his job on Black Monday, was among those who also landed on his feet right away. He was hired as an electrician at General Motors' Lordstown plant and became a supervisor after two years.

Thompson, 75, of Hubbard, traces his good fortune back to 1967. He had been at Sheet & Tube for seven years when he decided he wanted to learn a trade. Even though it meant a temporary pay cut, he signed up for a four-year apprenticeship program to become an electrician.

"I feel I was the luckiest person in the world to have done that and learned that skill," he said.

After Black Monday, companies from around the country came to town to recruit skilled trades workers. Thompson had offers in Detroit and Cleveland but decided he didn't want to leave the area, so he took a job at Lordstown.

He retired from GM with a buyout in 1993 and also is receiving a pension from his steel days of nearly $250 a month.

Tough times

Not everyone landed a good-paying industrial job right away, however.

"It was tough," said Frank Tisler, 64, of Poland, who also was out of work on Black Monday.

He wanted to learn a new skill, so he went to school to learn to become a refrigeration specialist. He turned down the only job offer in his field, a $5-an-hour position in Pittsburgh.

He started working a series of odd jobs. "I had to keep working because I had three girls and a wife. It's called survival," he said.

He thought he found his solution when he was hired at an LTV Steel mill in Aliquippa, Pa. "I told my wife that this place will never close down. It's six miles long," he said.

After three years, the mill closed. He returned to finding work wherever he could.

"The hardest part was not giving up, but I couldn't get down. I had too much responsibility," he said.

In 1985, his fortunes changed. He was hired at the Easco aluminum casting plant in Niles, which is now part of Indalex. He worked there 20 years before retiring in 2005.

"I survived," Tisler said. "I was really blessed."

Where was the blessing in all of his hardships? "I just made enough money to survive," he said.

Tisler wasn't the only one who had little to go on, other than determination.

Faith got him through

George Seila of New Wilmington, Pa., was 54 when he lost his job on Black Monday. He was too young to retire but too old to be a top candidate for other industrial jobs.

He was angry about losing his job but focused his attention on supporting his family. He and his wife had three children.

"We put our faith in the good Lord and said, 'We're going to make it,'" he said.

A temporary employment agency landed him work as a construction laborer, mixing concrete and helping to erect walls. He worked in the Sharon area for four years, helping to build retail shops and a movie theater.

He followed that up with jobs at McDonald's and Sheetz.

For his 32 years at Sheet & Tube, he receives a $470 monthly pension, but that doesn't mean he is totally retired.

Even at 84, he's still working nine to 12 hours a week at Sheetz near Grove City, Pa., making sure the pumps are working correctly and watching for gas thieves.

Like others who lived through Black Monday, Seila feels fortunate, despite his hardships.

He was able to find work, and he and his wife, Margaret, were able to stay here and rear a family in the place they call home.

"We're living fairly well. We don't have a big, fancy home, but it's ours," he said.

shilling@vindy.com

Sunday, September 16, 2007