Question 9 Bruce Springsteen wrote about the consequences of deindustrialization

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Question 9

Bruce Springsteen wrote about the consequences of deindustrialization on workers (and the community) in his song “Youngstown”. (lyrics below)

(Note on the lyrics: “Jenny” was what the workers affectionately called the main blast furnace at one of the steel mills)

YOUNGSTOWN

Here in north east Ohio / Back in eighteen-o-three
James and Danny Heaton / Found the ore that was linin' yellow creek
They built a blast furnace / Here along the shore
And they made the cannon balls / That helped the union win the war

    Here in Youngstown
    Here in Youngstown
    My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
    Here darlin' in Youngstown

Well my daddy worked the furnaces / Kept 'em hotter than hell
I come home from 'Nam worked my way to scarfer / A job that'd suit the devil as well
Taconite, coke and limestone / Fed my children and made my pay
Then smokestacks reachin' like the arms of god / Into a beautiful sky of soot and clay

    Here in Youngstown …

Well my daddy come on the Ohio works / When he come home from world war two
Now the yards just scrap and rubble / He said, "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do"
These mills they built the tanks and bombs / That won this country's wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam / Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for

    Here in Youngstown …

From the Monongaleh valley / To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalacchia / The story's always the same
Seven-hundred tons of metal a day / Now sir you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough / Rich enough to forget my name

    In Youngstown
    In Youngstown
    My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
    Here darlin' in Youngstown

When I die I don't want no part of heaven / I would not do heavens work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me / To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell

For decades, the steel industry was the backbone of Youngstown's economy. When the mills were purchased by larger corporations, the corporations diverted the profits from the mills to shore up their other business concerns, instead of reinvesting in the mills to keep them technologically updated. When the steel mills started shutting down in Youngstown in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the owners of the mills cited, in part, the lack of technological improvements which left the mills ill-equipped to compete with more modernized mills elsewhere. Even though the community came together and offered to purchase the mills to keep them open, the corporate owners refused to sell, and shut the mills down.

The narrator of the song pretty clearly implies that while the nation benefited from the steelworkers’ labor (they “built the tanks and bombs / That won this country's wars”), and the mill owners also profited from their labor (“Once I made you rich enough / Rich enough to forget my name”), the steelworkers themselves got the shaft. Did the steel companies and/or the nation owe the steelworkers anything -- do employers and/or the government have a moral obligation to workers and their communities who find themselves in similar situations?

What are your thoughts? (Please write at least 150 words in your response)

Explanation / Answer

Yes the government is definately having the moral obligation to look after the workers who looked after us for a very long time. They worked hard to give us what we want but ince technology took control of industries these worker were given tough times. Government must intervene and make some rulles about the payments made to workers and the safety of their work. They need to be given compensation and must be shown alternatives if they are taken off from their jobs. The government and the employers must feel responsible for these workers and help in making their lives better to live.

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