The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Steubenville Delegation

[Tease]

Pres. RONALD REAGAN [State of the Union address]: What we do and say here will make all the difference to auto workers in Detroit, lumberjacks in the Northwest, steel workers in Steubenville who are in the unemployment lines.

ROBERT MacNEIL [voice-over]: In his State of the Union message President Reagan indicated that he knew how hard the recession was hitting places like Steubenville, Ohio. Today, Steubenville told Washington what it's really like.

[Titles]

MacNEIL: Good evening. For months, a group of women from Steubenville, Ohio, have been trying to get a message to President Reagan. The White House has been saying he was too busy. But today, two of the women went to Washington accompanied by their congressman for an appointment with the Vice President, George Bush. The women are Regina Hart and Donna Starkey, and this was the message they carried from Stebenville.

DONNA STARKEY: The administration is blind to the unemployment. They're deaf to it. They live in their own world. They don't come out and meet ordinary people every day and find out what life's all about.

REGINA HART: I'm going to tell the Vice President of the United States we want our jobs back. We want our government to face up to us, the people that they're supposed to be protecting. It should be Americans now. Everyone needs their jobs. No matter who you are, no one should be able to take your job away from you, and this is what we're here for. We're fighting for our jobs. We want them back.

MacNEIL: Steubenville is a coal and steel town of 26,000 people just down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh. It is one of the American cities the recession has hit hardest, and today's visitors wanted the Reagan administration to know just how hard that is. Tonight, what the women of Steubenville told Vice President Bush about the recession, and what comfort they take back to Steubenville. Jim Lehrer is off tonight; Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in Washington. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Robin, the women from Steubenville made their visit to Washington with the memory of Ronald Reagan's visit to their town in the back of their minds. That was when Mr. Reagan was still running for president -- when he chose Steubenville as the place to go and see and hear for himself what the industrial heartland of blue-collar America had to say. Jim Lehrer also went to Steubenville that day to report on what both the candidate and the people had to say during that campaign visit. Here are some excerpts from that report [from October 7, 1980 film].

JIM LEHRER: From the moment he alighted from his plane at the nearby Wheeling, West Virginia, airport, he made it clear why he had come.

Candidate REAGAN: I do want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming out and giving me this chance to talk to you here. And I would deeply appreciate having your support come November. [applause] I know your unemployment rate is about 12 1/2%. I know where I'm going over in Steubenville, Ohio, it is that same percent.

LEHRER: Why Steubenville? Well, in national political terms, the experts are now saying, "How goes the industrial Midwest on November 4th, so goes the country." Reagan knows that to win in Ohio he must get the votes of people from towns like Steubenville. This town, like others around it, rely on coal mines and steel mills for their life. Steubenville steelworkers are traditionally Democrats. This discontent could work in Reagan's favor.

RESIDENT: Well, Reagan's coming to town to see what our economic thing is in the coal and the steel, and I think we have a lot here that really needs to be taken care of as far as the, you know, groundwork for our mills to get back to work and everybody else. So I'd like for him to say he's going to make this economy turn around here in the coal and the steel, and then everybody'd be back to work. Our unemployment is way higher than what it should be.

2nd RESIDENT: You've already seen Youngstown go down; you saw six of eight mills up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, go down. Why? Old. Why have our mills got old? Because they won't put no money in and rebuild them. Why won't they rebuild them? They think we're too expensive for labor, so cut labor costs. To cut labor costs, they find cheaper labor. And where's cheaper labor? Other countries. So that leaves America without a steel industry.

3rd RESIDENT: The people got to work. People have to work. So everybody else works. The steel mill got to work. This is a steel industry around here. If the steel industry doesn't work, nobody works. Everybody depends on the steelworkers.

Candidate REAGAN: But the problem right now is unemployment. Statewide in Ohio it's 10 1/2 or 10.2%. That's well above the national average. In Steubenville here it is 12.6, countywide 11.9. I have been in cities where it has been 18 and 19 1/2. In Flint, Michigan, which I'm going to visit shortly, it's 25%. Talking about those percentages, meeting some of the unemployed as I have around the country -- particularly in Detroit; meeting men from the steel industry, from the automobile industry, construction workers there, and hearing their stories and seeing their families -- their young wives and children, and they're looking for some sign of hope.

4th RESIDENT: He made me think, as far as his proposal toward steel and coal, that he was telling the truth. But I'm just not convinced yet.

5th RESIDENT: I know how the steelworkers feel that are unemployed and the coal miners feel that are unemployed, but when I see them collecting more money -- or almost as much money now when they're unemployed, compensation and benefits and things like that -- I think it's ridiculous. They're sitting in their homes, and they don't want to be collecting this money. They'd rather be working, and that's what they want to do. And I think with Reagan in there, he'll put them back in the mills, and he'll reconstruct the mills, build them stronger, and burn Ohio coal here in Steubenville.

MacNEIL: Of course, Ronald Reagan became President, although Steubenville actually voted for Jimmy Carter. But the hoped-for prosperity did not return. In fact, things got worse. In the past year, unemployment in Steubenville and the surrounding area jumped to 15% -- almost twice the national average. Steel production fell to between 45 and 50 percent of capacity at two of the biggest mills -- Wheeling/Pittsburgh and Weirton. Layoffs at those plants have almost doubled, reaching 42% of the work force at Wheeling/Pittsburgh and 23% at Weirton Steel. Bankruptcies, both personal and business, are running at more than 12,000 a year in a county with a population of only 94,000. And one more figure: people are moving out of the Steubenville area at a rate of 600 a year. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Dismal figures like the ones Robin just gave led to the organization of a group of seven women in Steubenville who call themselves Concerned Wives of Laid-off Workers. The women not only got in touch with their congressman to help get a meeting with the President, they also launched a petition drive to persuade the President to impose trade tariffs that would help make American steel more competitive with lower-priced foreign steel. For some further insight into what is motivating the Concerned Wives and what their life is like today in Steubenville, we go now to two of the Concerned Wives, Donna Starkey and Regina Hart, the group's organizer. Ms. Hart, what did you tell the Vice President about what life is like in Steubenville today?

Ms. HART: Well, I told him that due to unfair imports coming into the country, it's putting millions of people out of work, That's the most important thing right now. All these unfair imports coming into this country is literally putting our American men and wives and everyone out of work.

HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Starkey, what specifically did you tell him about the job situation -- what it's like for that many people to be out of work in the town?

Ms. STARKEY: We told him about the -- now, they had a job for 44 people at the unemployment office and there were thousands lined up in cold weather at one and two o'clock in the morning waiting for the unemployment office to open to get an application in. For 44 jobs.

HUNTER-GAULT: What other kinds of things are happening with people who have no jobs?

Ms. HART: A lot of marriages are breaking up. A lot of people are very -- there is no peace of mind for a lot of people. Anyone unemployed -- like in my predicament and in a lot of other people's down home -- their benefits have run out. There is no hospitalization left. There's nothing left. We have to find a way out. We have to go to our government. And the most important thing, I think right now, people are so upset about, what do you do?

HUNTER-GAULT: Now, you said that the benefits are running out. The gentleman on the tape we just played talked about the fact that the workers were sitting at home collecting unemployment compensation and benefits. What happened to those?

Ms. HART: Well, that was 1980. It's 1982 now. And the people are not back to work down home. There's more. More and more every day being laid off every week.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what happened to the unemployment compensation? Did it run out?

Ms. HART: Yes, that's right. It definitely ran out.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what happens with people when their unemployment benefits -- I mean, how are they coping? Are they getting welfare or food stamps or any kind of assistance at all?

Ms. HART: Some of the wives work. That's number one. Most of the people have to turn to welfare. And any working man in our valley in our tri-state area that's ever had to apply for welfare would sit here tonight and tell you just how awful and how degrading it is once you've had a job and you've been robbed of it.

HUNTER-GAULT: When you were out collecting the petitions a lot of the workers did tell you specific kinds of stories about what their lives were like. Can you remember any of those, any of them particularly stick in your mind?

Ms. STARKEY: Yes. There's one guy that told us that he had put his kids to bed and their stomachs weregrowling from being hungry. Now, that's a little bit ridiculous.

HUNTER-GAULT: How long ago was that?

Ms. STARKEY: That was just the other day when we was at the Mall.

HUNTER-GAULT: Are they able to get food stamps?

Ms. HART: If you qualify for it, but if you own a home and if you own a car past a '78, there's no help there.

HUNTER-GAULT: And a lot of these workers own those things that they were able to purchase when they were working?

Ms. HART: Yeah.

Ms. STARKEY: Everyone needs a car for medical, you know, emergencies -- anything. But they want you to sell what you have in order to get food stamps and stuff.

HUNTER-GAULT: What about medical emergencies? What are people doing who get sick or whose children get sick?

Ms. HART: Well, the minute -- I guess that, you know, you can go to the hospital. If you're lucky enough to get welfare you get a medical card. But with all the social services cuts right now, there is nowhere for these people to go. When these people get sick you go to the hospital and you're going to have a bill. Don't ask me who is going to pay that bill because the people can't. There is no jobs.

HUNTER-GAULT: Did one of you recently have an experience at a hospital?

Ms. HART: I did.

HUNTER-GAULT: What happened?

Ms. HART: My husband had appendicitis and he was operated on and we got -- that was four weeks ago, and we got the hospital bill, and I did try to get help with the hospital bill. It's almost $7,000, that's the hospital and doctor both. And we got told because we own a '78 Chevy they can't help us. So we have to sell our car. But I work every day. But I don't think it's even fair for any American -- we don't want the welfare. All we want's our jobs. If they would stop doing this illegal dumping into the United States and stop it altogether -- I mean, you have to import and export; we understand that. But not the way it's being done. None of the laws are being obeyed.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what are the plant managers telling workers about the job prospects around Steubenville?

Ms. HART: They're telling them the same thing that we hear every day -- "Because of the unfair imports coming into our country.? These people are literally put out of work because of imports.

HUNTER-GAULT: In other words they're telling them there won't be any jobs?

Ms. HART: Or they tell them just to hang on because this present administration is supposed to be doing something about it.

HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Starkey, are many people leaving Steubenville because there are no jobs there? Are they able to pick up and leave?

Ms. STARKEY: Yes, my brother leaves nextp week for Texas because he can't find a job.

HUNTER-GAULT: You went to Texas, didn't you?

Ms. HART: Yeah.

HUNTER-GAULT: You went looking for work?

Ms. HART: Well, right before my husband's benefits were running out we relocated, okay? And my husband's plant was all the ways down then. Okay. So we was down there -- I was down there like six weeks; my husband had been there three months. And they started the mill back up and my husband's got 20 years in this mill and they were supposed to call back half the work force, which would have got my husband. And what happened was, when we got -- the mill called back. We come back home. Well, due to the unfair imports, again, and the -- you know, the economic conditions, they just, you know, had to cut back in the mill and they kept 84 guys.

HUNTER-GAULT: So when he came -- he went to Texas and then came back thinking he could get his job and then didn't get it back?

Ms. HART: Right.

HUNTER-GAULT: Is that kind of thing happening to a lot of people, Ms. Starkey?

Ms. STARKEY: Yeah. They said for Wheeling Steel that anyone that's got 10 years and under will probably never be called back.

HUNTER-GAULT: Your husband is still working right now. Is he facing layoff?

Ms. STARKEY: Yeah. If they hit five more people, he'll get it.

HUNTER-GAULT: What's that doing to your life? I mean --

Ms. STARKEY: I got three ulcers.

HUNTER-GAULT: What about your children? How does this kind of situation affect your children and the other children in the town? How many do you have, five?

Ms. STARKEY: I have four.

HUNTER-GAULT: Four?

Ms. STARKEY: Yes. You can see the depression on my children. They don't go to school activities because we don't have the money for school activities -- basketball games, or what have you. We don't have it. My daughter that graduates this year said that 10 out of 18 out of her class -- because she goes to DE class --

HUNTER-GAULT: What is that?

Ms. STARKEY: Distributive education. That's if you have a job or can get a job, you're in this class instead of going to school all day. You go to two classes -- government and that. And 10 out of 18 of the parents of these students are laid off, and she can see the difference in them. A lot of kids won't come to school when they know that they're going roller skating or something. They just won't come to school that day because they don't want to say they don't have the money to go.

HUNTER-GAULT: Is this affecting the children's plans about the future? I mean, did a lot of the children in town, in the schools go to college and have plans for after high school?

Ms. HART: Yeah, because, see, a lot of the kids have now because this, you know, cuts, and especially school loans, a lot of kids, you know, have to work their way through where there's no jobs. There's no help, you know.

HUNTER-GAULT: So what are they doing?

Ms. HART: Well, a lot of them's just not going. A lot of them's praying to God they can look for a job. They put their applications in every day. But there's no jobs.

HUNTER-GAULT: Did I read somewhere that a lot of the young people were getting ready to enlist in the army or trying to get into the army?Or the Reserves or something? Is that causing some relief among the young?

Ms. STARKEY: It helps a little bit. It gets them off the streets because they don't have anything else to do, so it is someplace to go. But, you know, my son is 16 and they had the Army Reserve down talking to them at the school, and he's seriously thinking -- because at the age of 16, with your parents' consent, that you can go to the Reserve meetings and go for two weeks in the summer, and he's debating whether he should do that or not.

HUNTER-GAULT: How do you feel about that?

Ms. STARKEY: I don't like it, but if that's what he wants -- because I don't know what he's going to do when he gets out of school. I've got a daughter graduating this year that wants to go to school to be a nurse, and I don't have the money to send her. I don't know what she's going to do. I've got one 19 that's been looking for a job for a year and can't find one. And that's in those fast-chain restaurants and stuff. You can't get 'em. People that's got 'em are holding onto 'em.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, we'll come back. Robin?

MacNEIL: The women were accompanied today by their congressman, Democrat Douglas Applegate, a former state legislator who has been in the House of Representatives since 1969. He's a member of the caucus of congressmen interested in the steel industry. Congressman, do you think the message the ladies brought got through to Mr. Bush?

Rep. DOUGLAS APPLEGATE: Well, Robin, I'm not just sure. The Vice President is a very personable and cordial fellow, and I have met and talked with him sociably before. And I think that he tried to listen, but I was a little surprised at some of the -- a couple of the things that he said. For instance, we were talking about -- Mrs. Hart was talking about imports and the Vice President was stating that a trigger-pricing mechanism would be one of the vehicles by which we would be able to keep down the amount of steel coming into the United States. But apparently nobody told the Vice President that the administration had suspended the trigger-pricing mechanism a couple of months ago in lieu of anti-dumping suits. And so a couple of instances like that. But I want to say that the women did a fantastic job, and they really drove the points home very good, and I think they got the message across. And I think these kinds of meetings with people in responsibility -- in the area of responsibility will ultimately mean something.

MacNEIL: Were you -- did Mr. Bush offer anything in the way of comfort?

Rep. APPLEGATE: Not too much in the way of comfort except, I suppose, to be a little bit repetitious in his support of the Reagan economic plan. And more or less to say, "Hang in there and things will get better." But the problem is that while it may in a year or two or whatever it might take, there are a lot of people that are unemployed now. There's a lot of people that want to work to feed and clothe their families, and during this interim period while they're waiting, it's going to be very difficult times.

MacNEIL: Do you support the women in their call for tariff restrictions on imports?

Rep. APPLEGATE: Yes, I think that I do, not as a permanent solution, but more as a temporary. Because I believe in the free enterprise system, and I think that it has worked. But recently in Pittsburgh, our economic development committee on public works held meetings and hearings, and one of the executive officers from Jones and Laughlin -- for the first time that I had heard from this particular level -- had stated that they would be supportive of some kind of restrictions. And I know in the past they have not really supported it. And of course the administration -- not just this administration, but previous administrations also -- have not supported trade restrictions. They have been free-traders.

MacNEIL: Given the political realities, would a move towards trade restrictions stand any chance in the Congress?

Rep. APPLEGATE: I think that it would be very difficult to pass unless it had the support of the administration. However, Bill Brock has just returned from Japan --

MacNEIL: That's the President's trade representative.

Rep. APPLEGATE: Yes. It's the trade representative, and he has returned with some suggestions, but saying that there may have to be some kind of reciprocity between the two countries. Otherwise he doesn't know whether or not they would be able to hold the Congress back.

MacNEIL: In your own view, are the troubles of Steubenville, which the women have been giving us in detail, due primarily to the impact of steel imports, or to the effects of the recession?

Rep. APPLEGATE: I think it's a combination of both. There's no question about that imports have affected us, as they affect the automobile industry they affect the steel industry. And 20% of America's consumption ofsteel comes from outside of its borders, and 42% of the so-called "specialty steels" or alloys, and --

MacNEIL: The people behind these women, on whose behalf they came to Washington today, are of course among your constituents. Did you hear anything when you were with them today in the meeting with the Vice President that would help you to reassure the people who vote for you and will be voting for you again -- I assume you're running for re-election in November -- will be voting for you again this November, to reassure them about the future in Steubenville? Did you hear anything?

Rep. APPLEGATE: No, I don't think that I could take home a message.We didn't really expect to get hard answers to take back home except to, I guess you might say, offer them hope. The fact that this organization of women have taken it upon themselves to go out and fight against the high unemployment figures, and try to do something about it, I think this in itself offers hope to people, and the fact that the Vice President did take time to listen. But the administration, I might add, has not been doing that. They have not been talking to the people who have been mostly affected, and I think that you might know -- in the press conference recently that the President had, one of the ladies asked the President why he had not met with farmers who have been trying to see him over the past year since he's been in office, stating a very busy schedule. And the President said, "Well, that's true, my schedule is heavy, but we didn't completely close the door." I think the President -- I think the administration is going to have to open the door and start listening to these people; and I realize that he has a course that he doesn't want to veer from, and I think that he feels that the success is down that straight and narrow road. But I think there's going to have to be some flexibility, and I think that those who supported him the last time, and particularly the Republicans in the north, and the Democrats in the South who bolted, are now saying to him, "Mr. President, you're going to have to change your policies. You're going to have to modify your policies, or else you're just not going to get your package through."

MacNEIL: Well, thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Hart, what do you feel was the Vice President's reaction to the stories you told him today?

Ms. HART: Well, when I come up with ones I that asked him about, like Wheeling/ Pittsburgh Steel in our hometown and Satralloy, another plant, they got TRA.

HUNTER-GAULT: TRA is the --

Ms. HART: And it stands for Trade Readjustment Agreement. And that means that you've been put out of work because of an import. I mean it's what it definitely means. He didn't have no answer to that. Like he was in the dark about it. And I couldn't get it -- I mean, stuff like that and different questions we'd ask him, he'd act like he, you know, was very, you know, naive about it.

HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Starkey, in the opening segment we showed you all saying that you felt the administration was blind to unemployment and that they don't come out and meet with everyday people who can tell them what's going on out there. Do you feel after your conversation with the Vice President that at least this representative of the administration is no longer blind to the problem?

Ms. STARKEY: Well, I don't know if he's blind, but he can't be deaf after today. Not after what we told him. We're just hoping he carries it back to the President.

HUNTER-GAULT: Did he say anything to convince you or make you feel better about his understanding of the situation?

Ms. STARKEY: No, not really. He was sympathetic with, you know, our cause, with the Concerned Wives. And I told him that sympathy wasn't putting food on the table and paying the bills, and it's not.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you feel any better?

Ms. HART: No, I mean, I feel one thing in my heart right now -- that I can go home and I'm going to fight on. The Concerned Wives are going to fight with everything we've got.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what do you think Mr. Bush is going to do with what you told him today?

Ms. HART: Well, we hope he takes it to the President of the United States because --

HUNTER-GAULT: Did he say he would?

Ms. HART: No.

HUNTER-GAULT: Did you ask him to?

Ms. HART: No, not really.

HUNTER-GAULT: What did you ask him to do?

Ms. HART: Well, he just said that he, you know, favors Reaganomics, you know, and he thinks it will work. Well, what some people think and what some people do is two different questions. Because that road works both ways. And we have to get the American people back to work. This is what it's all about. And this foreign aid that's going over to other countries -- put it back in our country.

HUNTER-GAULT: If you could tell him right now anything that you didn't tell him this morning in that meeting, what would you tell him to do? Would it be to take the message to the President that the people --

Ms. HART: Yes, most definitely. We want jobs now. Americans first.

HUNTER-GAULT: What kind of message are you taking back to Steubenville, Ms. Starkey, as a result of this meeting? Is it a hopeful message? Is it a cautiously optimistic message?

Ms. STARKEY: All I can tell them is that he was sympathetic with our problem, and hope that he takes it back to the President and talks it over with him and see what they can come up with.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you feel the same way? I mean, can you go back with an optimistic message to the people? I mean, they're waiting for you tonight to come back and report on this meeting. What are you going to tell them?

Ms. HART: Well, from the beginning we didn't think we was going to get any answers when we talked to the Vice President. We really knew we weren't going to get no answers, but it was one door open. And this way here, now he knows how we feel, the Concerned Wives. I mean, we're trying to be wives, mothers, breadwinners, and everything, and without our husbands behind us -- we've got the United Steelworkers and a lot of good people we met along the way -- we wouldn't have got this far. And all I can say right now when I go back -- to tell every American person to get ahold of their senators and their congressmen and let them know just how they feel, and pray to God they get a congressman that we got -- like our representative from our district -- that does care. And if we had more people caring, it'd be a better world. And it should be jobs now for Americans.

HUNTER-GAULT: How do you think the people in Steubenville are going to react to the message that you bring back, Ms. Starkey?

Ms. STARKEY: I don't know how they're going to handle it. Like she said, we talked about what kind of answers we were going to get from him, and we didn't figure we was going to get too much, so I don't think they're really looking for too much when we get back.

HUNTER-GAULT: What do you think is going to be their response -- the people in Steubenville to the message that these ladies take back?

Rep. APPLEGATE: Well, I think that -- I think the ladies have offered the people of Steubenvillehope. And I think that they have something to fight on with.And as long as we can show the way -- you know, people just need something. They need somebody. They don't like inactivity. They don't like to see their economic situation going down the drain without somebody at least trying. And it isn't just them, it's a lot of other people who really and sincerely are concerned. So I think the people will accept it well. I'm sure that they aren't expecting a lot of quick answers, but at least, as Regina said, the door has been opened for them. And I think they have been the first of a large, large unemployment list that's had an opportunity to talk to the administration.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Mrs. Hart, Mrs. Starkey and Congressman Applegate, thank you very much for joining us this evening.Good night, Charlayne.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That's all for tonight. We will be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.