WHO'S WRITING THIS

Stan Wieczorek. 51 years old. I live Downriver, south of Detroit, same as my dad did. I hired into the mill in 1972 and ran an overhead crane in the coil yard of the hot strip mill for most of the 27 years since. Good job. Hard job. Paid for a house, two kids' braces, and most of my daughter's college so far.

On Friday, December 18, 1998, one week before Christmas, they idled our line, and me and a few hundred other guys got our notices. They said "temporary." It's September now.

My daughter set up this page for me in February and showed me how to work it. Before that I'd never turned on a computer in my life. I figured if I was going to be sitting home, I could at least put down what I've learned so the next guy doesn't have to learn it the hard way. A lot of you have written me since. Thank you. Keep writing.

WHAT HAPPENED

If you're in steel you know this already, but for the families and everybody else:

When the money crisis hit Asia in 1997 and 1998, countries over there, and Russia and Brazil too, couldn't sell their steel at home anymore. So it came here. Imports hit a record last year, and a lot of it was selling below what it cost to make. Our mill couldn't sell our coils at those prices, and neither could anybody else's. Mills cut back, guys got laid off all over, and several steel companies have gone into bankruptcy since last fall.

The union and a lot of the steel companies got together on the Stand Up for Steel campaign, trying to get Washington to enforce the trade laws and stop the dumping. In March the House passed a bill to put limits on steel imports. In June it died in the Senate. There are trade cases still going on. I'll put news here when there's any worth telling.

If you want to help, write your Congressman and both your Senators. Short, polite and personal works best. Tell them who you are and what happened to your family. Don't send a form letter. They count those but they read the real ones.

GOING BACK TO SCHOOL AT 51

Our TAA petition got approved in the spring, and since June I've been in truck driving school for my commercial driver's license. It's paid for, and I get benefits while I'm in class. I was scared to death to go back to school. Last time I sat at a desk, Johnson was president. Half my class is twenty years old and one of them called me "sir" the first day. Now they call me Pops. I don't mind.

Turns out 27 years of moving 20-ton coils around a building with a crane is good practice for backing a trailer. I passed my written tests the first time and my road test is in October. There's a company hiring drivers out of Toledo. It's not the mill. It's work.

Other guys from my department went other ways: welding school, HVAC, one went back for a nursing degree, two retired early, and some are still waiting on the callback. See the Roll Call for where everybody landed.

THE PART NOBODY TALKS ABOUT

Mill guys don't talk about feelings. I know. I'm one. But I'm going to say this anyway.

When you've got up at 5 a.m. for 27 years and put on your boots, and all of a sudden you don't, it does something to you. You don't know who you are. You sit in the kitchen and watch the clock. Your wife is walking on eggshells. Some guys start drinking more. Some guys get short with their kids. I did some of that. I'm not proud of it.

What helped me was talking. To my wife, first. To the guys at the hall. To my pastor. To my doctor, who asked me some questions and gave me some straight answers. If you're feeling low, or worse, go talk to somebody. Your doctor, your pastor, your union's assistance program, a crisis line. It is not weak. The strongest guy I ever worked with, forty years in the mill, told me he sees a counselor every other Tuesday. I'd have never guessed.

And wives and kids: be patient with us. We're working on it.