National Works Memories: Don Kovach
Snow, ice was easy; working retail was hard
By Jason Togyer
(A version of this interview originally appeared in The Daily News, McKeesport, Pa., in 1997.)
Neither cold, nor rain, nor sleet and hail could keep Don Kovach and his co-workers from their appointed rounds.
The 37-year veteran of National Plant’s shipping department remembers loading railroad cars and barges with tons and tons of pipe, even when the mercury had plunged to 19 below zero and his fingers and toes had stopped working.
“A lot of the shipping department was Slovak,” said Kovach, 65, of Port Vue. “These old guys, they never wore gloves. They’d go out there and rub snow on their hands and work the rest of the day. They were tough.”
A wealth of unforgettable experiences like that came to an end on February 4, 1987, when members of the shipping department reported to work after a five-and-a-half-month strike and learned the mill was closing for good.
“We were on the 7 a.m. turn,” Kovach said. “By noon of that day, they told us once we got all the pipe out, we were done. They probably wouldn’t even have called us back in if they would have known at the time.”
His last day was July 29.
“Seven or eight years before, there was a lot of talk (that the mill might close),” Kovach said. “At that time I didn’t believe it, but later on, you could see it.”
‘To the day they shut down, I didn’t think they would’
Still, the quality of the electric-resistance weld pipe National produced was so good, he said, “to the day they shut it down, I honestly didn’t think they would.”
Kovach remembers walking around the plant and saying goodbye to workers in other departments. He also remembers the sight of lockers that had been abandoned with clothes and steel-toe boots still inside. “A lot of guys who were laid off, they never came back“ to collect their belongings, he said.
Despite the heavy work and sometimes rough weather conditions, Kovach has fond memories of his days in the shipping department -- especially the camaraderie.
“Sure, we razzed each other, but if one guy needed help, we would help out,” he said, adding that shipping is one of several mill departments that still gathers for reunions.
“There was always that thing of ’working together.’ It was all about teamwork.”
Kovach said he liked working outdoors and moving around the vast mill.
Sending 12,000 tons over the wall
“We weren’t stuck in one particular place,” he said. “We were constantly moving, and you had to be alert. The time would pass fast.”
Swinging piles of pipe “over the wall“ into barges -- sometimes 8,000 to 12,000 tons in an eight-hour turn -- was a delicate job that required concentration and plenty of nerve. “The trick was you couldn’t get it weighted too much to either side (of the barge) -- you had to get it weighted enough that it would roll down,” Kovach said. “You had to work almost right underneath that stuff. You had no place to go.”
And heaven help you if you held a crane operator up. “Boy, would he holler,” Kovach said.
When the mill shut down, he was left with a partial pension and a “sweetener“ to help him get by. But with one son in Catholic high school and two other children in college, Kovach couldn’t afford to enjoy the time off.
‘It wasn’t even gasoline money’
While his wife sold baked goods to meet tuition payments, he took a job as a laborer in a department store. “It was 16 hours a week,” Kovach said. “That wasn’t even gasoline money.” For about a year he worked as a security guard at an outlet store. It was an even tougher adjustment.
“Whenever I had to work with the public, forget it,” he said. “I just couldn’t take it -- it was like night and day.”
Some of his co-workers found work in other plants, and one became a commercial photographer.
“I imagine some of them left the area,” Kovach said. “I saw one guy a few years back ... he was working at one of the Giant Eagle stores. I felt sorry for a lot of them. A lot of them were pushed out.”
Camp-Hill Corp., which purchased the ERW in late 1987, offered him part-time work twice, and both times, he declined. The third offer was the charm, and he returned full-time to the job he enjoyed, staying with the new firm until he turned 62.
“The good Lord looked out for me,” Kovach said.
Written by Jason Togyer from interview conducted October 1997
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A version of this interview originally appeared in The Daily News, McKeesport, Pa., in 1997. Comments, corrections and additions are welcome! Write to Jason Togyer at first initial and last name at gmail dot com. This article is from tubecityonline.com/steel, the Steel Heritage section of Tube City Online, P.O. Box 94, McKeesport, PA 15134. |