"The years 1981-86 were an economic watershed in American history. When, in 1981, President Reagan fired 13,000 striking air traffic controllers and destroyed their union, his actions would mark the beginning of a policy of union-busting by an anti-labor administration that would indelibly change the face of American productivity, the middle-class and working families over the next three decades.

"To increase corporate profits the economy was being systematically transformed from a productive-based industrial economy to one of finance, service and technology. Unions were broken, agribusiness replaced the family farm, small community banks were usurped by the majors. At the center of this transition was the 'Steel City', Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

"For generations Pittsburgh had supplied the steel for America. It had built WWII war machinery and in peacetime had built the infrastructure of America as well as supplying the automobile industry. The 50s, 60s and early 70s saw the greatest economic boom in U.S. history. But, as the song goes, '...the times, they are a 'changing'. To increase corporate and shareholder profits, steel would now be imported in order to cut labor costs; equipment would be sold off; blast furnaces shut down (9 out of 10 were closed and/or destroyed) and jobs would be cut - about 100,000 in the steel industry alone. As the steel plants closed, the towns and small businesses along the Monongahela River Valley, so reliant on industry for their livelihood, went bankrupt and the homes of the unemployed were foreclosed. Land where plants had stood for a hundred years, was reclaimed for redevelopment or regeneration while the big steel companies moved to diversify their business in order to maximize profit. To entice new 'upscale' business, 'Steel City' was renamed the 'City with a Smile'.

"US Steel, at one time America's largest employer, bought Marathon Oil while the United Steel Workers Union - in order to survive - became the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union. They even went into organizing grocery workers. Meanwhile steel worker pension plans had been invested into the Sumitomo Corporation of Japan to create the same product that grandfather, father and son had created in Pittsburgh. The Japanese, the Koreans, the Brazilians and the Taiwanese were taking over world production while a quarter of a million steel and steel related workers in western Pennsylvania had lost their jobs. Unemployment climbed to a staggering 28%. The Mon River towns of Clairton, Duquesne, Bradford, Homestead, Alaquippa all lost their tax base; businesses were boarded up; health and education services evaporated; libraries closed. The situation in the Monongahela River Valley was dire and the union men, who had made concessions to management time and again, were beaten.

"My brother, Pastor Daniel Solberg, was pastor of a Lutheran church in Allison Park (a suburb of Pittsburgh), a 'nice middle-class' community serving mostly middle-management people. But when Daniel saw what was happening, he and a group of '30-something' pastors made a decision that would change the course of their careers and their personal lives. They could not sit by, watch and pray for the folks to whom the devastation was so real. They decided to take a stand on behalf of the unemployed against the actions of the 'powers-that-be' - U.S. Steel, J and L Steel, Westinghouse, Melon Bank and the Allegheny Conference (a powerful Pittsburgh think tank), etc. They challenged the big corporations head-on and demanded that the welfare of people who were hardest hit by the current policies and the shutdown of steel be included in any transition to the future. Without retraining, how does a man or woman who've worked all their lives in a steel mill suddenly know how to operate a computer? How does a man who's been earning top wages in a steel plant support a family on minimum wage by flipping hamburgers? When the pleas of the pastors (known as the Denominational Ministry Strategy - DMS) went unheard, this young group of pastors, with the support and involvement of a few angry local union leaders, created a climate in Pittsburgh that flew in the face of the plans of the financial leaders to move toward 'service and technology' and change the face and image of Pittsburgh.

"The DMS employed all sorts of creative symbolic tactics to embarrass the 'powers that be'. Their message? If change was coming to Pittsburgh... Great! But it was not going to happen at the cost of unemployment. The pastors demanded that corporate America take those people who had given so much to the U.S. economy along with them. Retrain the workers, restart communities, undergird unions and allow the men and women who had only known steel to retrain, begin life again and work.

"Rather than being welcomed as the voice of social conscience, if not reason, the pastors became anathema and were labeled 'radicals', 'communists''' and 'terrorists'. They were ostracized from the rest of the religious community because of their 'tactics'. Pastors should stay in their churches and be 'nice' - pray and mete out comfort, clothing and food. They should not become actively involved, put themselves on the line or stand on behalf of people who were suffering.

"The press and TV (including CBS's flagship show 60 Minutes), themselves owned by the corporations, lambasted the DMS and those few local union leaders who, with the pastors, had taken up the fight to demand a fair shake from the corporations. Even the pastors' own Bishop Cromley came out on the side of power. 'Transition is inevitable', he said. 'You can't recreate what was in the past'. The DMS used reaction to make their point and along with the symbolic tactics - frozen fish deposited in Melon Bank safety deposit boxes on a Friday night with the message on Monday morning ... 'Melon Bank policies STINK!' - they also did copious research, uncovering many illegal land deals and corrupt activities - collusion involving the Mafia, big business and even the Church. The little guy loved these pastors ... the powerful loathed them. It was hot in Pittsburgh.

"In 1985, my brother Daniel was directed by his church counsel to resign. As his church was made up of middle-management people who were afraid for their own jobs, it was clear that Daniel's actions and his vocal association with the cause of the unemployed might put their own jobs in jeopardy ... and they didn't like that. But Daniel stood by 'the call of the Gospel'. When, after a protracted battle with his church counsel, he refused to resign as pastor, the counsel took their grievances to the bishop who got a court order to have him removed from the premesis. Daniel refused to recognize the order and announced publicly that he would lock himself inside his church. He did. After about a week, the Marshals came, broke down the doors and arrested him for 'criminal trespass'. He was remanded to a prison (200 miles away from his family) for four months to await trial. Meanwhile another pastor, Douglas Roth, serving the steel community of Clairton, had already been arrested out of his church, tried and was spending six months in prison. Upon his release, Reverend Roth was defrocked for standing on behalf of his ravaged community.

"During this period, between 1983 and 1985, between trying to juggle work and keep my own marriage together, I flew back and forth between L.A. and Pittsburgh to document on video the impact that the shutdown was having on the communities in the Mon Valley and the men and women who were suffering as a result. And because of my high profile, I was also encouraged to be a spokesman to the press as well as a person who could gain access to some of Pittsburgh's corporate heads (ala David Roderick, CEO of U.S. STEEL). I remember a meeting I had with him on the 66th floor of the U.S. Steel building. I asked him how he could justify U.S. Steel's decision to put so many people out of work and what was he going to do about it. Well, just like in the movies, Roderick got up from the swivel chair behind the acreage that was his desk and moved thoughtfully to the floor to ceiling window that looked out over Pittsburgh and Monongahela River Valley. After a long and considered moment he turned to me and said, 'You know David, it's terrible what's happening out there in the Valley. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do about it'. Right, I thought. And he went on: 'Oh... by the way, could I get an autograph for my son. You're his favourite.'

"To be honest, as a documentarian I was torn. I was supposed to be an objective chronicler of event but I found myself a participant. As a video documentarian I was constrained by rules of objectivity, but that's a difficult position to maintain when I'd been witness to the forcible eviction of an unemployed family from their home... when I'd discovered a suicide victim hanging in a closet... when I'd attended the funeral of a baby buried in a shoe-box... when I'd witnessed and filmed the rage of an unemployed steel worker against his wife. I watched 20 year veterans of the steel industry, who would never see their pensions, weep as the blast furnaces (they were all called by womens' names) were blown-up. I ask you: Knowing the causes and witnessing the consequences, how does anyone maintain 'objectivity'?

"On Easter Sunday, 1985, I led a group of about 50 unemployed steel-workers carrying cardboard boxes filled with rusted steel to lay at the altar of Shadyside Presbyterian Church to remind the congregation that this travesty was not simply going to go away and that we were placing this rusted steel before the altar until they did do something about it. Shadyside was the richest church in Pennsylvania and 'spiritual home' of 'blue-haired' ladies, mink stoles, ushers in tail-coats and white gloves and the CEOs of Pittsburgh's biggest corporations. Our motley group was met at the church by 35 riot-clad police, including the Chief of Police himself along with the Commissioner of Police. We were ordered to disperse. We refused. We were immediately arrested (trespass, disturbing the peace, failure to disperse) and thrown into county jail. Out on $50,000 bail, I fought the misdemeanor charges and would subsequently sue the city of Pittsburgh for $50,000,000 for violating my civil rights as guaranteed under the Constitution of the U.S.

"Our peaceful action had taken place on a public side-walk in front of the church and had disrupted nothing. Although two of the charges were overturned by a Court of Appeals, I was forced to take the remaining charge ('failure to disperse') all the way to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. And though I had the support of the ACLU, I simply ran out of money. Had I overturned that remaining charge, my chances for restitution and my civil suit against the city, on behalf of the steel-workers, would have had a good chance. But, by that time, lawyers representing Pittsburgh's corporations had threatened to ruin my career if I didn't drop the civil suit and as I didn't have the money to continue the fight and as tensions were building in my own home, I had to pull out. All in, between the film and the court cases, I'd spent approximately $350,000 and would eventually lose my wife.

"Meanwhile, my brother's case (criminal trespass) was dismissed by an Allegheny County judge on the grounds of insufficient evidence. But upon his release from jail and despite our father's (himself a highly respected pastor and historian) stand on his behalf, brother Dan was defrocked by a vote of the Lutheran Church Synod for 'behaviour unbecoming a pastor'. His wife divorced him. And so, a 33-year old Yale University graduate, a pastor beloved by his congregation when he was 'nice'; a man being groomed as a future bishop ... a leader in the church... and a true witness to the Gospel had lost everything. So, what was accomplished?

"Let me ask you this? Has the economic situation since the mid-80s changed for the better in the United States? Do you see any parallels between 2010 and then? When, if ever, should a person take a stand that puts him or herself at risk and how far should that person go? Will taking such a stand as Daniel did, really make a difference? Love to hear your response."

David Soul
February 2009

1985

Featuring Colleen Gropp; Reverend John Gropp; Jack Bokin; Pat Bokin; Charles Honeywell; Bishop James R. Crumley; Reverend Daniel Solberg; Darrell Becker; Reverend James Von Dreele; "jimbo" Ferencz; John Popp; Rita Popp; Audrey Ferencz; Reverend Mont Bowser; Wayne Cochran; Reverend Douglas Roth; Judge Emil Narick; Nadine Roth; Darrell Becker; Eugene L. Coon; Helen Becker; Ann Solberg.

Narrated by David Soul; Produced by Bill Jersey; Richard Wormser; Written and Directed by Michael Chandler; Bill Jersey; Richard Wormser; Edited by Michael Chandler; Camera: Jerry Hughes; Ken Van Sickle; Sound: Bobby Shepard; Bill Wander; Annie Gandon; Music: Mark Adler; Production Associates: Annie Gandon; Marian Shambo; Bob Foster; Assistant Editor: Marlon Riggs; Production Assistance Provided by Global Village, Hollywood Central Studio; Post Production: Espresso Productions; Sound Mix: Berke Sound; The producers gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of Pittsburgh Television Stations: WPXI-TV; KDKA-TV; WTAE-TV; The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour and The Men and Women of the Monongahela and Ohio River Valleys; Funding for this program was provided by The Catticus Corporation; A Non-Profit Organisation; A Bill Jersey/David Soul Production. ©1985 Topanga Services, Ltd.