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My name is Joe Rosel, I'm the former president of local 9477, now I administer the hall,
but I was the president of the local at the time the plant went down, unfortunately. What
I thought I would do was take the job for the summer. It was a labor job, everybody
started in the labor department, but the money was actually good. The money was so good.
Now the job was tough. \ You got taken around the plant to do the hardest
labor jobs there were that mill labor people didn't want to do. Running the jack hammer
inside the hot mill furnace, inside the plate mill furnace. Go in the flues of the open
hearth, you would go under the mill where all the dirt and everything collected that
would have went out the smoke stacks, but over time, moisture would collect and you
would be down in their shoveling and wheeling out iron oxide dust.\
I had a bachelors degree too from Towson in the early 80's, but what I found out was that
I was making more money than my professors. So it was O.K. to have a college degree, but
If i wanted to make money, I wasn't going to make more money with my degree, than I
was going to make down at the plant. My great uncle worked there for 46 years and my uncle,
who's 81, worked there for 40-some years. \
This is my grandfather's chit that he had to keep with him in order to get paid. You
would take this with you to the payroll office and have to show them this in order to get
paid. I keep this as a memento of my grandfather who worked down there 46 years. He died when
he was 94 years old. But being the president of the local and fighting to keep this plant
open, I kept this as a memento saying to myself, that it was a solemn oath to myself and my
members that i would do everything i could to try to save and try to keep this plant
open. Knowing the legacy and the history that were so important to so many people but not
just me. I'm typical of a lot of other people and I wanted to remind myself everyday, so
i kept it with me about what I was fighting for, which is basically not a job, but a way
of life. \ I have a scene of regret, I mean that the
plant is being shut down, but the only thing I can say is, I can look in the mirror in
the morning and say, I did everything I could and fought as hard as I could fight to try
to keep that open.\ The race isn't over till you're dead. The
fights not over till your dead. So for me, this isn't over. Maybe Sparrows point may
go down and be redeveloped, but I feel it may still be redeveloped and have steel down
there again. May not be the way that it is, but the possibility is, that one of the uses
of that ground, because there is 3,000 acres and 4 square miles, is still in the future,
a modern steel plant. Who knows?\ }