Americans are more united than we think, but too often united in pain
Some of the union members I met looked straight out of central casting. Imposing men and women who did not stand on ceremony. Tough as some appeared, I found them trusting, thoughtful and open-minded. We didn’t talk politics at first, but I would learn over time that some were Republicans, others were Democrats. But all were union members who, to my eye, never let political affiliation diminish their camaraderie and concern for each other, in a situation that for some had become dire.
I am a filmmaker, who had the privilege of documenting last year’s struggles of United Steelworkers Local 1196. The union chapter in Brackenridge participated in a 3 ½-month strike to save jobs, secure wage increases and maintain premium-free health insurance.
What I filmed during that time sharply undercuts the stereotype of an American people riven by political polarization. The members actions during trying times show that the goals, desires and challenges of Americans left and right are remarkably similar.
Consider Greg, a union leader whose wife was undergoing chemotherapy when the strike began. After a 30-day grace period, the company-provided health care lapsed. That meant his wife’s treatment costs ballooned to thousands of dollars for each session. The sooner the strike ended, the sooner those financially debilitating charges would disappear. Yet, understanding the issues at stake for a long-term, secure future for his fellow workers and their families as well as his own, he held fast in the fight for a better contract.
Greg eventually found a healthcare plan for his wife that they could pay, but at a cost to his own protection. “Right now, I don’t have healthcare,” he said to me, camera rolling and capturing an American flag dangling from a porch in the background. “But I’m feeling lucky. And that’s what it’s about,” he added. “Luck.”
It shouldn’t be simply about luck in Brackenridge, and it used not to be. The decline of American industry is not new, but the full, harmful economic, social and psychological fallout can still be overlooked. The steelworkers of the Brackenridge plant are not poor, and that is the point. Working at the mill had been a predictable pathway to the American middle class, and it didn’t require an advanced degree or college debt. It wasn’t easy, but for many, it was accessible. It did not depend on luck.
That security is gone now, and nothing has replaced it. The Pittsburgh area has a reputation for overcoming the challenges that have beset the Rust Belt, but hollowed-out towns in the region remain. And workers like those in Local 1196 feel they must go on strike to keep from living in another one. As one mill worker tells the camera from the picket line, “They don’t need manpower anymore. The town is boarded up because of the malls. The malls are boarded up because of the internet. What’s next?”
Ryan, a furnace operator, knows. In the film, we follow as he turns to DoorDash to make ends meet, delivering meals as the weeks on strike stretch into months. His computer training to work the furnaces is useless when collecting combo meals from Burger King. A gig-economy job may have been his only option at the time, but it provided no benefits, even necessities such as healthcare and retirement assistance. These were once hallmarks of traditional American middleclass life.
My father worked in the Homestead mill in the 1960s. He was a member of the United Steelworkers. He was also an absent-minded college student working during the summers, and to this day he thanks the old-timers for helping keep him safe in what has always been a dangerous environment. It was a rite of passage. It was also a way of life, passed down from generation to generation.
I visited the historic Homestead site during filming but found only a parking lot adjacent to a forlorn shopping mall. By my father’s telling, there was a time when even the hint of a steelworker’s strike would send shivers up and down the American economy. That is a stark contrast to the present day. Few people outside Brackenridge were or are even now aware of last year’s strike.
The steelworkers’ goals, their reasons for striking, reflect the
aspirationsof all Americans. They fought to secure the ability to provide for themselves and their families. That’s a universal aim that goes back to the nation’s establishment, and the demands and ambitions outlined in our founding documents. The hope for achieving that success is a fundamental connection among all Americans. It’s part of what unites us.
From my work filming across the country, I perceive that a sense of abandonment also transcends partisan divides. Workers in red and blue regions feel forgotten, or even unknown. The discussions I have in urban Baltimore are remarkably similar to those I had in Brackenridge.
One May morning last year, under a light drizzle and a gray sky as the strike and the filming continued, the conversation on the picket lines turned to the future. “They say, ‘Oh, you should go get a green job,’” one union member declared. “But where’s the green jobs? If there was a green job on the other side of [the Allegheny] river, we’d all go apply right now!”
“Do you think the politicians realize there aren’t any green jobs?” I asked.
“Sure, they do,” the picketer responded with a shrug. “Of course, they realize,” answered another. “They just don’t care.”
That’s a sentiment shared by a dismayingly large number of citizens, one that has no regard for the political polarization about which Americans often hear.