Against the Grain: Dismantling the Steel Plant That Generations Built

I had a very sad conversation with a couple of guys recently that just made me shake my head at the throw-away society we have become.

The gentlemen I refer to are working temporary jobs dismantling the Sparrows Point steel plant most recently known as RG Steel.

To begin with, the men are making more money to tear down the plant than they ever did to make steel there, and that irony isn't lost on either man.

They're working long, hard hours while collecting a good paycheck but they're heartbroken over what they're doing.

The plant's steel production is history, as is the auction held in an attempt to get rid of bigger, more industrial, reusable machinery, motors and equipment.

Now, crews are tearing down, cutting up and trucking away pretty much anything that remains, whether it could be used again or not.

The men shake their heads at the machines, equipment, motors and tools—some brand-new, still in the original packaging—that they are cutting up for scrap.

"You wouldn't believe the stuff we're cutting up down there," one man said. "Brand new welding machines, still in bubble wrap; motors still in the original packaging; all kinds of tools," he said. "If we ask about a particular piece, the answer is the same: 'Cut it up.'"

Not only can the workers not offer to buy any of the tools that might make it easier for them to get jobs when this one is done, some workers have discovered the hard way that taking the smallest piece of "scrap" is a fireable offense.

The men tell the story of one worker who took from a scrap heap two small sanding disks. He made no effort to hide them; he threw them in the open bed of his truck. Not a sanding machine, not equipment, not power tools, but two small sanding disks that could be used on a consumer-grade sander.

At the end of the day, his vehicle was one of the ones selected for a random search and when the disks were discovered in his truck, he was fired on the spot.

Now, I'm not defending or justifying stealing. But if I saw something usable sticking up out of a neighbor's trash can, I might be inclined to help myself.

I understand this situation is different. This "trash" isn't going to a landfill; it has a per-pound value in cold, hard cash and it's going to a recycler, where it will generate revenue for the property owner.

So I understand the concept of the owner thinking the scrap disks were as good as stolen by the employee because they have a monetary value that the company won't see if they go home to someone's personal toolbox.

But I also have to look at it from the perspective of workers who know better than most of us the value of a tool that goes far beyond its "scrap" value.

These are men and women who have made their livelihoods their entire adult lives with tools and equipment. They have lovingly built personal tool collections, starting with cheaper items and graduating to "top of the line" equipment as their skills and paychecks increased.

They've cleaned, cared for and respected the tools and equipment of trades that allowed them to provide good homes and comfortable lifestyles for their families.

Tools have allowed them to pay off mortgages, buy new cars every couple of years and send kids to private schools.

Their tools and skills have put them in a position to replace the hot water heater of the single mom down the block without charging her for labor; allowed them to patch the roof of an injured union brother; inspired them to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity or Rebuild Baltimore; and let them give extended life to the car of an elderly relative who just couldn't afford to buy a newer one.

They take pride in their tools and even more pride in what they are able to produce or provide with those tools.

It goes against their very reason for breathing to cut up perfectly good tools and machinery, knowing the scrap value is a penny or two on the dollar of what they mean to the men and women who have earned paychecks with them, generation after generation.

And they'd like the opportunity to be able to make a fair market offer on something they can use or —in the case of antique items that remind them of  the things they used to see in their grandfathers' basements—would just like to keep out of the scrap heap.

If it's all about the bottom line, the owner would get more money than he would from the item's scrap value, and these tools would live on to be the instruments of more good deeds.

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