WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Pictured above, a new street sign was unveiled during a ceremony held on Thursday (June 6th) at the former Bethlehem Steel Plant in Lackawanna, located just outside Buffalo.  Steelworkers Way was formally dedicated during the event that was held by the United Steelworkers (USW) Union, which also formerly endorsed Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz for a fourth term.  (USW Provided Photos)

(LACKAWANNA, NEW YORK) – It was sure bet there were goosebumps running up and down the bodies of those United Steelworker (USW) Officials and represented Workers who gathered at the former Bethlehem Steel Plant site in Lackawanna - just outside Buffalo on Thursday (June 7th), during a ceremony held to rename one of the streets to honor the Workers who once toiled there and helped make this country what it is today.

“It was ‘really exciting, surreal actually,’” USW District 4 Sub-Director Jim Briggs told WNYLaborToday.com of the unveiling of Steelworkers Way inside the old steel plant’s grounds, which has now been transformed into an industrial park.  “To have a street named after a group of Workers who worked there for more than five decades and now having it gone as many, ‘to remember they were a large part of our community.’  ‘It’s unbelievable because as Americans and Western New Yorkers, we forget too quickly about those Workers who worked in an extremely dangerous industry, but who also built Western New York and this country.’”

The Steelworkers Way street sign within what is now known as the Renaissance Commerce Park is also a reminder of the work done by Essential Workers, Briggs said: “We just went through a (Coronavirus) Pandemic ‘where a lot of people went to work because they were deemed essential by the government have now been forgotten.’  ‘But those who were deemed essential were the Middle Class, Union Workers - it was we who were essential and let me tell you we were essential before the pandemic.’”

Much of the sprawling Bethlehem Steel Plant was closed in 1982 after encountering significant financial problems.  At the height of steel production there, the plant had employed more than 22,000 Steelworkers and its closing was an economic blow to not only Lackawanna and Buffalo, but to Western New York and New York State.

Dozens of local USW Leaders and Members were in attendance at Thursday’s event, which also featured a public endorsement for the re-election of Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

In fact, Poloncarz’s father, a former Steelworker who worked at the Bethlehem Plant, as well as the Lackawanna Fire Chief, whose father was also employed there, were in attendance, according to Briggs.

“It is my understanding that Mark Poloncarz ‘saw the need to remember the past (with the street sign) so it’s remembered in the future,’” Briggs said.  “‘It shows that those (who worked at the Bethlehem Plant and the contributions they made) will never be forgotten.’”

“Every day ‘I get to go to work in a job that I love,’” Briggs continued, “for an organization ‘that I love to work for - and this makes you proud’ (to be a Member of the USW).  ‘I love what the USW does - every day.’”

In making the Union’s endorsement of Poloncarz, USW District 4 Director David Wasiura (in the white shirt pictured below at the podium with Poloncarz, in a blue shirt, just to the right) said the USW was proud to endorse a candidate who understands the importance of family supporting, community sustaining jobs in the region’s economy: “Mark Poloncarz has been standing with us during our fight for economic justice and supporting policies that maintain and create good Union Jobs since his first days in public service.  We are grateful for his continued outspoken support and advocacy and happy to endorse him for a fourth term.”

In addition, Wasiura said Poloncarz will fight for Working Families on a wide range of issues, including continuing to demand investment in infrastructure to create jobs and respecting the right for Workers to organize and bargain collectively.

WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Information contained within this Labor News Report also comes from a USW Press Release and WikipediA.  Several other photos that also appear come from the USW via Facebook.