Edie Papadakis

Edie [Papadakis] Butler was one of the most well-known figures at Sparrows Point. The daughter of a steelworker, she was one of three women hired into the mechanical department at The Point and was an active member of the union as well. Now remarried and living in Florida, she was a conscientious saver of all material about her years at The Point and donated four trunkloads of material to this project.

Interviewed July 19, 2002

MR. BARRY:

All right. We were just talking here, tell me again about the police and the respect, what were you just saying?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I was saying that I don't know why a steelworker as hard as we worked and how we neglect our families and everything that put everything we have into our jobs, why we're not well-respected like a police officer or a fireman, not that I don't love firemen or police, but we're just thought about as dirtballs, you know. We have no -- what do you call that, up in society, we're not held up in society as being worth anything, but yet we have value just like the fire department or the police department, and they get all the special treatment, they get certain days off. If they work so many days, they get a break. We don't get a break. The one time we get a break is when we fall over. That's the only time we get a break, and that's sad. We shouldn't have to fall over to get a break or wait for our vacations or stuff like that. We should be human beings, and yet we're not treated like human beings I don't feel in a steel mill. It's a different type of person down there. They want you like a robot, and we're not robots, we're full of life.

MR. BARRY:

All right. Now, we're going to start kind of at the beginning, and tell me a little bit about your childhood, your fourth generation at Bethlehem Steel.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, really the third.

MR. BARRY:

Third generation at Bethlehem Steel. What was it like? Where did you grow up?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Dundalk.

MR. BARRY:

And what was it like being a child of a Bethlehem Steel employee?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

You heard steel stories, everybody made steel around our table.

MR. BARRY:

Your grandparents or your grandfather?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No, it was my dad and my mother, and then my brother went down there. My cousins went down there, my aunt was down there, my uncles were down there, and all my father's friends were all steelworkers, and they would all come, and that's all I would hear is about what the mill was doing. I knew about the mill before I even went down to the mill. Of course I didn't know what it was all about, you know, until you go down there and experience it. You just hear about it, but you have no idea what it really is.

MR. BARRY:

Well, as a child, what did you hear, what were your impressions?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

A big scarey place.

MR. BARRY:

Why?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Dangerous and hard work.

MR. BARRY:

Can you remember specific stuff?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

My mother would just tell us how hard it was to flip that tin and all and to stay awake, you know, and watch, examine the steel as it was going up there, and it just seemed like you had to always be on the ball, you had to be sharp.

MR. BARRY:

Did your parents meet down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No.

MR. BARRY:

They were married and then they went to work both of them down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, my dad worked there first, and then my aunt was there and then my mother had went down there.

MR. BARRY:

After your parents were married?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, after I was born she got a job.

MR. BARRY:

Were your parents natives of this area?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

My mother was, and my father I think lived in the city at the time, and then when they got married, then they both lived down here in Dundalk.

MR. BARRY:

When did you father start down there; do you know?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

1947.

MR. BARRY:

'47. So you started there actually after the union came in. The union came in 1941, so he would have been more than 50 years now that he's been tied to Bethlehem Steel?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, he was over in World War II at that time in '41 and all them years I think.

MR. BARRY:

Where did he work before he went to work at Bethlehem Steel; do you know?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, he was a cab driver when he come out of the service for awhile, and then he worked at Martins and then he went down to the Point, and then when he would get laid off, he would just go anywhere to get a job.

MR. BARRY:

So after then you were born and your mom went to work down there also. Did she work flipping tin?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, a tin flopper.

MR. BARRY:

Tin flopper is what they call it, and it was all women down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Hmm-hmm.

MR. BARRY:

Did they always work the same shift or work different shifts?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No, different shifts.

MR. BARRY:

So that there was somebody home, and where did you live at this time?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

On Sours Point Road. Yeah, we always had my grandmother watching us. She watched all of the children.

MR. BARRY:

So could your mom and dad walk to work?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I guess they could have, but I think they took the bus, and then drove and my father would drive.

MR. BARRY:

As they got more income?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

If the place was so scarey when you were a child, what led you to work down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

The money.

MR. BARRY:

Tell me a little bit about that about when you started to work.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, my husband worked for the city and he didn't make that much and I wanted it better for my children and all of us, and my sister come in one day and said she had a good job for me. She had told me about the opening that they were finally going to have women go in the mechanical, and that's what I loved, so I went down there.

MR. BARRY:

And when was this?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, I've got to go back. Out of high school I went down there for a keypunch job I think it was like in March or something like that, and they didn't really call me.

MR. BARRY:

Of what year?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

In '66, but they didn't really call me until like I think like June of '66 and I done was married and pregnant and I didn't get the job, but then in '76 my sister told me about a mechanical job that was opened, a helper. So I went down there and got in that big line, and it was a big line.

MR. BARRY:

Tell me about the line.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

It was large, people were coming out of the woodwork to get a job down there. They finally were opening up the doors to hire again. They didn't hire that often, but this was everybody come from all around heard about them taking people. So I got in that line that morning, and I lucked out and got the job.

MR. BARRY:

Where was the line?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

All outside of the employment office down there at Sparrows Point.

MR. BARRY:

Nice day, raining; do you remember?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

It was a nice day.

MR. BARRY:

Did you go down by yourself?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

And there were just all sorts of people waiting in line?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

Did it help you that you had relatives already working there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Not really.

MR. BARRY:

When did your sister go to work there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

My sister was there before me. She has already got 30 years there. She went in I think '74.

MR. BARRY:

And your mom and dad were still working there then?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No. My dad, he got out of there in '71, and my mother, she only stayed there eight years and quit. She just couldn't take it.

MR. BARRY:

So your father had 25 years, 20 years? If he started in --

MS. PAPADAKIS:

He had 24 years. I have more under my belt than he does.

MR. BARRY:

Really?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

Do you ever let him forget that?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I'm not going to let him forget that.

MR. BARRY:

How come he left?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, he got injured, so he got a disability and got out of there.

MR. BARRY:

And what did your mother do?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

My mother went on to do the keep punching as a key puncher like we used to be at the beginning before I got the job.

MR. BARRY:

And then she quit?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, she --

MR. BARRY:

You said she quit down there after eight years?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Right. She went on to be a key puncher all the time.

MR. BARRY:

Where?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

With the Automobile Club of Maryland.

MR. BARRY:

So she went to work with the industry. I guess a question would be if you heard all these steel stories from your dad and from other people, what made your sister want to go to work down there; just the money?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah. She was supporting a little baby and she needed -- I mean it was good money down there. That's all you heard is if you worked hard you would make good money, so you went where the money was, and close and convenient, and one thing we did know from watching my father is you could be whatever you wanted to be down there. That is one thing that Bethlehem gives you, you can be whoever you want to be. If you want to be an electrician, if you want to be a mechanic, if you want -- whatever, you just bid into the departments if you can pass the test. If not, then you've got to go up there to school and learn it all and then go back and try again.

MR. BARRY:

Well, did you find it hard when you started down there as a woman to move up, or was the Bethlehem manager pretty good about that?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Do I really have to answer that?

MR. BARRY:

Hmm-hmm.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I don't think they will ever accept a woman down there, not in my profession, I really don't believe it.

MR. BARRY:

Because we have other women like Mary Lorenzo who had the same problem.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I mean it's sad, because I wanted them just to treat me as a human being. You know that's all I asked, but it's just always that conflict there. It's not been easy.

MR. BARRY:

Well, tell me then about your first day on the job.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, nobody worked with me for two days.

MR. BARRY:

Really.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I sat on the bench, and I thought what can I say to these guys to really make them mad, and I said I am getting paid for just sitting here. They are out there sweating, working their rear ends off, and I'm just sitting there getting a nice pay, and I told them that and they got mad, and the one says well then, you are coming with me, and then I got to start. It was one way of getting them.

MR. BARRY:

What was the mechanical department doing? Describe a little bit about what the work was.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, it was bull work back then. We didn't have the modern technology that we have today, so it was all pinch bars and mauling and burning and welding and all that, much harder than today. Today we think a lot with our minds more than do the physical -- the physical is still there, don't get me wrong, it's still very difficult, but it's not like it used to be. We have different means of helping us now.

MR. BARRY:

People who are going to watch this video are not going to understand how steel is made, so tell me what in the mechanical department fits into making steel.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, we keep all of the machinery and all the operations functioning from hydraulics, everything moving in the middle, clamps holding everything in place and oils. If there ain't no oil in nothing, it ain't going to run, and then repairs. That's the biggest is repairs. We are always repairing something, keeping it -- you know, patching it up, patching it up.

MR. BARRY:

So it's really a maintenance function?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

It has to be there. Even though they don't want us there, it has to be there.

MR. BARRY:

Well, how did you get hired in the skilled position like that off the street?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Had to take a test.

MR. BARRY:

What was the test like?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, thank God I was raised with four brothers and a father that that's all they did. My father used to have motors hanging off the monkey bar trees, you know what I mean, and I used to watch him out there and help him and he would say get me this wrench and get me that wrench, and I used to put my baby dolls hair up with cotter pins. I knew what a cotter pin was. Everything that on that paper I knew from my dad. My dad would tell me and I would go and fetch it for him.

MR. BARRY:

So when you started work then, was it the men or the supervisors or both who were giving you a hard time?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Both, but I really truly believe I broke through to the men. The other level, I don't think they will ever be -- but I don't feel bad like I did because they think that way of the guys, too, we're nothing, so it doesn't matter if I'm not nothing any more, because the guys ain't nothing either. We have no value. They are the ones that are valuable, the ones running the plant. We're not valuable, and that's sad because we want to -- one time they said we were going to get together and be a team, and I cried because I really believed that we would be a team and it would be a wonderful team for both sides to join together. But it just don't seem like it's working. It's that friction all the time, and it shouldn't be. When you work for a company, you should be happy. We should be happy going to work, not like oh, my God, what's going to happen today or who is going to be on me today. You shouldn't have that fear.

MR. BARRY:

Were there men who were helpful to you?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Oh, yeah. Oh, my God, I wouldn't have got my break if it wasn't for men that believed in me and showed me everything, showed me -- there is tricks of the trade. You can get all these books that you want, and there are still little tricks of the trade that they taught me. They have taken their time, and with me some things I picked up fast, other things I didn't, because I do not see maintenance like a man does. I have already told them that. I see it in a woman's -- like I told the man the other day, our rolls down there, I don't see them as rolls like you all see them, steel rolls. I see them as a washing machine and the steel going through the old time hand washing machines. But I understand it, but I can't understand it their way. I have to put it in the way I can understand it; you know what I mean? They don't understand when I talk to them. That's another thing that's bad. If I had it to do over again, I would have got more education and then went down there. See, I'm not educated enough to keep up with them guys. The way they speak and their terminology and my terminology is two different kinds because of my schooling. Now my sister, she can keep up with them, she is more highly educated than I am. But I just keep telling them over and over until they finally realize what I am trying to tell them or else they will just tell me go away; you know what I mean, get lost, forget it, Edie, or if they see me coming, they go the other way.

MR. BARRY:

Well, what was it like then being there on the first couple of days after you heard so much about it?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Scared to death. I heard that buggy going in and out and I heard about all the people that were killed down there, and I swear to God I just thought they were taking them out by the dozens, and all it was was a buggy coming in and out with clean rolls, and I didn't know that.

MR. BARRY:

What is a buggy?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

A little buggy that takes the rolls back and forth.

MR. BARRY:

Like a cart?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Like a cart or something.

MR. BARRY:

The reason I'm asking you that is parts of this video may be shown to schools and stuff like that, and one of the things that has always concerned me about different interviews that people do and the classes that we do that these are going to be shown to people who have never been to Bethlehem Steel, and they need to have a litter better sense of exactly what you talk about, the terminology of the men and the women. You are going to have people who are outside the industry, and so I'm just going to ask you to kind of describe it for the people who are going want to watch this.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, it's like a cart on wheels with a cable pulling it in and out of one area to the other area.

MR. BARRY:

Is it run on a track or is it run on a rope?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, it's on like a rail and the cable pulls it, the wheels, and pulls it into where they grind the rolls in the grinder shop.

MR. BARRY:

What was it like? It was scary you said. Bigger than what you thought it was going to be?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, everything was big, real big. I just never saw such big bolts in my life and malls, oh, my God, it took everything I had to pick one up.

MR. BARRY:

And there were probably 25,000 people working there at the time?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

There was a lot of us, yeah, and then I watched it dwindle down to hardly nothing now.

MR. BARRY:

What was it like at shift change the first day; do you remember?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I couldn't wait to get out of there. I was just petrified and nobody wanting to work with me. I couldn't wait to get out of there because I had to be tough, you know, I was a steelworker now. I couldn't show them that I was a girl, you know, and I left and I would cry or I would run to the lady's room and cry or something, you know what I mean. I couldn't never let them see the tears, you know, out of fear of them making fun of me.

MR. BARRY:

Were there other women down there at the time?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, there was three of us hired, but they split us up. I was with just the men.

MR. BARRY:

Were you one of the first women hired down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, me and Kathy and Barbara, all three of us.

MR. BARRY:

In 1974, and that was the beginning.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

'76.

MR. BARRY:

How about at home, was your husband a help?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No, he told my he hoped I failed the test. He didn't want me going down there.

MR. BARRY:

What did he want you to do?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Just stay home with the babies, but I wanted a better life and I wanted the children to have a better life, and I didn't want him to work all them doubles all the time. I didn't see him, and I figured if I worked and he worked, then we would at least see each other somewhere, get together.

MR. BARRY:

You talk about having a better life for your kids. How did your father feel about having you go to work down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

He was tickled. He come to watch me my first day, he was there.

MR. BARRY:

Really.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah. He wanted to make sure I would be all right.

MR. BARRY:

Proud guy, told all his friends?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, his friends come with him to see me. They watched me through the doorway doing -- you know, doing bearing changing. Yeah, I will never forget it, I looked back and I saw my dad. I was so nervous, I was hoping I was doing everything right, you know, but I was real proud. It was just something about the steel mill that gives you a proudness to say I work at Bethlehem Steel, you know. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was in my blood. After all, he worked there before I was born, so maybe it was in my blood.

MR. BARRY:

That's an amazing story. Did your father come back and tell you how proud he was?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, he was tickled, but I think the most exciting thing with me and my dad was when I got my real rate as a millwright, my real rate. See, my father never got it. My father went over there, but he never could pass those tests. He got it through his work, so many hours on the job that they would give it to you. But he couldn't go over there because he couldn't read and understand. It's not that he couldn't do the job, my father was a very good mechanic, but he just couldn't read and understand what they wanted. He had that problem. So when Shackleforth give all of us -- grandfathered us all a C rate, Kathy and the other girl, they were happy that we were called millwrights, but I wasn't because I felt if the men had to go over there and take that test, I'm going -- I wanted to be like them, not a man, but be an equal like them, then I've got to go do the same thing they do, so I went over there. Of course I failed it a couple of times, you have to keep going back until you get so many jobs. But when I got my first real C rate, I went out in the parking lot and I cried. I come home and told my dad on the telephone, and he cried just as much as I cried. We both cried to each other. That's how happy he was. I knew he would be very proud of me.

MR. BARRY:

That is an amazing story.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, because I got something my dad didn't get that he always wanted to. It's just that he didn't have nobody to help him.

MR. BARRY:

You were saying before we started the interview that your father had a fourth grade education or sixth grade, something like that?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, fourth.

MR. BARRY:

Down in Baltimore City?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I guess. I never really asked my dad about his education.

MR. BARRY:

Never knew your grandparents?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I don't ask him about that. I don't want him to feel bad because he only went to a fourth grade. It's okay.

MR. BARRY:

It's perfectly all right.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

He went to hard knocks school, that one is harder.

MR. BARRY:

Did you ever know your grandparents?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No.

MR. BARRY:

They were gone before you were born?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, my grandmother died at 25 years old.

MR. BARRY:

So now we've got you past the first years and eventually up to the C rate. When did you start getting involved in the union?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, I always knew about the union, but like I said I feel I'm not that educated to get up in front of people and speak. My vocabulary is very limited, and I really am kind of like my father, I can't read and comprehend, but if you show me, I will understand, but you have to tell it to me over and over until I can fully see the picture, because like I said I don't see it like you all see it. I do not see it in a man's eyes. I see it different. Everything they talk about I see it different, even though they don't know I am seeing it different. It's kind of hard to explain, and I never really talked to a girl to see if she sees it the same way as I do, you know, but I know whenever I talk to them about maintenance, I tell them how I have learned, and they seem to pick it up faster learning it my way than the way of the men would learn it.

MR. BARRY:

Well, when did you get into the union? Let's go back to that question. Do you remember anything about that?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Not really until -- when I got into the hot mill the second time, which it took me 16 years to get back in it for the second time.

MR. BARRY:

Why?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Because that's the first time they had openings for me to be able to bid back into the hot mill.

MR. BARRY:

So when you started, you were in the hot mill?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

And describe the hot mill briefly.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, I really didn't stay there that long. I couldn't take the pressure. I wound up transferring to the pipe mill.

MR. BARRY:

And what was the pressure in the hot mill?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I knew that they didn't want no women there, and when I went to the pipe mill, they seemed to -- there was a man named Smith that was in charge, and he seemed -- didn't care what you was, a girl, a boy, whatever. As long as you did the job, he didn't care what you was, and I was happier over there. I didn't love it over there. I loved it in the hot mill, but I was happier in the pipe mill.

MR. BARRY:

Why did you love it in the hot mill?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Because that's where I was hired, it was my home. I didn't want to go -- didn't want to go to the pipe mill, and I didn't like that they didn't want me there either. That was making me determined that one day I would go back. I don't like that somebody don't -- didn't want me there. That ain't a good enough reason. If I couldn't do the job, yes, but just because I was a girl, no, that wasn't a good enough reason for me not to ever want to go back there.

MR. BARRY:

How long were you in the hot mill when you first got hired roughly?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

On and off a couple of years, but we only worked like three months or four months and would get laid off, so I really didn't have that -- I would work and then be on the streets and then work, and then be on the streets, and that's how they did until when I would go -- when I finally went back the third time, I couldn't take it, I wound up going to the pipe mill.

MR. BARRY:

About when was that; do you remember what year?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

About '78.

MR. BARRY:

So for the first few years it was pretty rough in terms of continued employment, steady employment?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

Just because the industry was up and down?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Right.

MR. BARRY:

It was after Vietnam, the economy was not so great there, late 70's, early 80's. So when you came back and you went to the pipe mill, did you have more layoffs there, or was it pretty steady?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

We got laid off, too, over there, but the other two girls followed me, because they said that they felt I was the strongest out of them three, and when I got scared and I went over there, they followed me. They didn't want no parts of the hot mill either. They knew -- you know, they figured I was the toughest one out of them and I had left, so they put up the white flag and left with me.

MR. BARRY:

Are they still there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No, we all come back -- it took me 16 years to get back there.

MR. BARRY:

So you worked 16 years in the pipe mill?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No. When the pipe mill went down in 1981, we were laid off, and then when I went back, I was like in that bull gang or whatever. I had to go wherever they sent me. Sometimes I was in the 42, sometimes I was in the 56, went over to the steel side, went wherever there was work. Then I went with the pipe fitters for awhile, then I come back to mechanical. We just went wherever the work was.

MR. BARRY:

Well, let's go back a little bit to your union experience. When did you get involved in the union?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

When I finally got back and got a number in the hot mill. When I finally got a home, then I got involved.

MR. BARRY:

And what made you get involved?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, the man that was there, Jimmy Romano, he had it like a family over there with them guys, and I really loved that that he kept them all together.

MR. BARRY:

He was a union committee person?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

Zone man?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

He was a zone man, and he was really good with the people, you know, and I saw that, and then I would tell him let's have something. Since nobody acknowledged us, let us acknowledge each other, let us show honor to each other since nobody else is showing us honor, so that's when we started that hot mill retirement party up there. Even though when I worked over at the 56 they made me an honorary member. I wasn't -- I didn't have no number, but their wives loved me and they made me an honorary member.

MR. BARRY:

Well, tell me about the retirement picnic that you did.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, we only had it for a couple of years because it was hard work. It's not easy to find everybody and work down there and then me taking care of everybody, and it seemed like that was really bad when my mother-in-law was sick and my mother was sick and everybody was getting sick on me, and I just couldn't think to keep this going, so I had to surrender and tell them we couldn't have it any more. I had to let both of them go. I had to let the 56 go and the 68.

MR. BARRY:

Well, what were the parties like?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

They were wonderful. We had great times.

MR. BARRY:

Where did you have them?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Up there -- the union hall gave it to us.

MR. BARRY:

The 2609?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

And on a Saturday or a Sunday?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, they let us pick what day, and they left it open for us, and we were going to have it every year at the same time. That way people would remember. Like you would say the first Sunday of March, and then we had the first Sunday of October for the 56.

MR. BARRY:

And 56 refers to a department down at Bethlehem Steel?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yes, 56, cold sheet mill, mechanical, and the 68 was the 422 mechanical.

MR. BARRY:

How many people would come to these retirement parties?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, it was real big at the beginning, and then it started like people didn't want to get involved. It was just so much happening down there that they just said heck with it.

MR. BARRY:

What do you mean there was so much happening?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

See, when they were cutting back, the boys were feeling like they were cutting each other's throats, and it kind of -- when Jimmy got out, the family was gone, it wasn't a family any more. We got new people in there in the union and it just wasn't a family any more. Nobody trusted nobody. You didn't even trust another union member, so they didn't want to be involved. They would say we're not going up there, which was sad. I mean it's okay. You know even if you don't like somebody, you've still got to honor them because somebody likes them out there, their mother-in-law, somebody loves them out there.

MR. BARRY:

And also you are working for them for better or for worse?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Right.

MR. BARRY:

And you depend on each other in those situations, you might as well get used to it. What other activities did you do in the union?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I only did volunteer work. Whenever they needed me, I told them 24 hours there's the phone.

MR. BARRY:

What do you think about the current situation?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

It's just got everybody nuts. We don't know what we're doing. We don't know if we've got a job or we don't have a job, should we be looking for another job or shouldn't we be looking for another job, we don't know.

MR. BARRY:

What's the mood down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

It's not good. I try to keep them laughing if I can. Then sometimes they get mad at me.

MR. BARRY:

How is your father affected by all of this?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, they are just worried about the money, you know. I mean after all that's -- they are surviving off of Bethlehem's Steel medical and the little bit of pension that he gets. If that goes, then I don't know what will happen. I couldn't help them because I'm a Bethlehem employee, too, so when it goes, I ain't going to have anything. I'm going to be out there where, you know, maybe it's sad that the whole family works down there because there would be somebody over here strong in some other area that we all can go to, you know what I mean? Now I couldn't help them if I wanted to, unless I luck out and find another job somewhere. The only thing I'm worried about is my age now. I'm 54 and who wants a 54-year-old; you know what I mean? I ain't 26 any more like I was when I went down at Bethlehem.

MR. BARRY:

If you had to remember a couple of highlights of working down there, other than the ones you talked about, can you think of anything; good times, bad times?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I try to forget the bad times, try to only think of the good. I try to make every day good, you know. I don't know. I can't really say one special day, except when we signed that agreement that we were going to be a team. I really thought everything was over and that we really were going to be a team with each other. That was about the happiest day of my life is when I signed that big paper they had down there on the hot mill office.

MR. BARRY:

You mean the partnership agreement?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah. We all signed that, and that was the happiest day of my life. I really believed it, I wanted to believe it with all my heart that we had become one and that we would look out for each other. It's not good to have a separation where you work.

MR. BARRY:

How do you get information about the current situation down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Other union people tell us, they keep us informed, or if one of the boys moves to a union meeting, they bring the information back to us and tell us what's happening.

MR. BARRY:

Little shop meeting. Do you try and get up to the union meetings at all?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I used to, but I don't any more. I haven't really been involved in anything ever since I told you about the split between us, my husband and I. I just don't get involved in anything any more.

MR. BARRY:

What do you mean the split?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

The divorce, I got a divorce and my whole world changed.

MR. BARRY:

I'm sorry, I don't think you told us about that.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

And when I heal, I will get back into it again. It's going to take a lot of healing.

MR. BARRY:

Has this situation affected you at work? Are you finding yourself short of staff or short of parts and stuff the last years?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yes. We don't have the parts. We have to wait to get parts to do our job, and then you have to patch it up and use whatever you can find laying around, and then they won't -- like I keep telling them to put us at a table and talk with us because our people have very good ideas of how them to save money, but nobody seems to want to hear what we have to say.

MR. BARRY:

Has that been true down there right along?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, I saw it -- in my 26 years saw a lot of waste. I don't know. To me, they don't run it like other companies I had worked for. When I got laid off, I've had to go to other companies and work, and it's just not run the same way. That steel mill is run different than these other companies that are around.

MR. BARRY:

Where did you work when you were laid off?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I worked at Glidden Paint and I worked at Armco Steel.

MR. BARRY:

And how were they different?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, their supervision, when you were hired to do a job, you did the job and you were out their gates. Down there, nobody is accountable for nothing, they are not accountable, the white hats, and we're not accountable, so what kind of place are we running?

MR. BARRY:

I guess the last question then, unless you have something else you want to say, is if you had to do it over again, would you go down there again and go through it?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I say no, but I really did enjoy going to work, I really did. You can ask my whole family. They knew that I couldn't wait to go to work. Believe it or not, Bethlehem was my out of what I do around here, it was something different, and what I give this a hundred percent, I wanted to give them a hundred percent, too, or more because they always seemed to need more than what my family needed.

MR. BARRY:

Now, you say your brother worked down there. Is he still there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No, my brother Joe, he went down there first. He is retired. Then he married the other girl mechanic, Kathy, and she's got a disability and she's retired. Then my sister Dee, she's retired. She married Mr. David Wilson, and he is retired. So there's four retirees there plus my father, that's five retirees. And then you have --

MR. BARRY:

So Dee Wilson is your sister?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Hmm-hmm. Then you have my brother Gene, but he passed away, but he was out on like a disability because he had cancer, and then his son worked there.

MR. BARRY:

So that would be your nephew. Is he still there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No, he left, and then my sister's son worked there, Dee Wilson's son, but then he left, and then it would be my brother Johnny and now he was 62 and old enough to retire, and now I'm the last of the Mohicans down there.

MR. BARRY:

Hoping to make it through?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

Well, when you got together with your families, when you get together now --

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Talk steel. All we do is woe steel, how to make it better, how to do this, how to do that, try to come up with answers, how to make the union better, how to make everything better, always trying to make something better. But like my sister said if I don't get involved I can't make it better, I have to be involved in it, but I'm the type of person I've got to feel it in my heart, and I just ain't there right now, you know, it's just too much for me to handle. It's not in my heart to do the volunteering and work, and it ain't in my heart to get involved in anything. I just put so much of me into things that it's a disaster when things happen because I put too much in it. I always wanted to be normal like everybody else and be able to throw it all over my shoulder, but I just -- I take stuff too, too serious I guess.

MR. BARRY:

Well, you had brought some stuff in here from the plant. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what you've got.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, I just have a lot of pictures of the people and my certificates that I got my rate and pictures and my schooling papers, and I was on an industrial maintenance brochure one time, and I got the history that Mr. Cary Gordon made up for us one time, I kept that.

MR. BARRY:

What history was that?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

He made a little book up and give it to all the tour people, which I thought was an excellent idea. I think they should continue and still give it to people when they come through our mill. It's really nice, not just for a tour, but when everybody comes through our mill, because people want to know about our mill, they want to know what's happening.

MR. BARRY:

So you keep all this stuff at home and throw it in a drawer? You keep all this stuff here and keep it all together?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, I'm not that good at keeping stuff together.

MR. BARRY:

Well, it looked like you are pretty well organized.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

And I've got videos of the old mill, the way the hot mill used to be. I got the new mill, and then I got some safety videos.

MR. BARRY:

Where did you get these -- did you make these videos yourself, or were these ones --

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No, they were given to me from people. People give them to me, donated them to me when I had the club.

MR. BARRY:

But were they videos that people made themselves?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah.

MR. BARRY:

Little home videos? Those would be great. I would love to take a look at those, because those probably go back --

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Well, it shows the old hot mill.

MR. BARRY:

Twenty years?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

It's really neat. To me -- I have been there 26 years and it is still fascinating. I just sit on the bench and look at the steel, and I can't believe it, can't believe that it will come out of that furnace down there, went through the reverse and rubber, then number five stand. It's just amazing, unbelievable.

MR. BARRY:

What do you think the country would be like without a steel industry?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I just can't never see it not being in here, but I just think that we should find other ways of using our steel. There's got to be something we can think of that we can use our steel for, or at least get some companies down there to come on our property and use our steel to do -- build whatever they are going to build. You know what I mean? That way we can sell it even more if we could get somebody down there to make a plant and use our steel. You know what I mean?

MR. BARRY:

Can plant or cars or something like that?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Yeah, something. There's got to be something we can use that steel for than what we are using it for right now.

MR. BARRY:

It's also that there's a huge amount of land down there for industrial use.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Right.

MR. BARRY:

That's an enormous --

MS. PAPADAKIS:

It would be good if we could be a supplier to little companies around us. I don't know. I just hope we come up with something.

MR. BARRY:

Do any of your children work down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

No. My son tried. He put in an application, but they never called him. Now he did get a job at the shipyard. He worked at our shipyard down there. He was a welder down there, but they kept laying him off, and he had a little baby, so he wound up getting another job and he went to another company.

MR. BARRY:

But you would have felt fine by having him go to work down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Oh, yeah, I wanted him there. I was proud. I knew he would be good. I like what my son -- I used to watch him. He fascinated me, and I think he would have been good for Bethlehem, but they didn't give him that chance, but that's all right. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. It's okay.

MR. BARRY:

Anything else you can think of important about Bethlehem Steel and your time down there?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

It's been an experience.

MR. BARRY:

And you would do it again?

MS. PAPADAKIS:

I would, but I would want that education, I would definitely want that education, and then I would be heard and respected where I don't feel that they hear me or respect me because I'm not that highly educated. I don't know the right words to come back with them except mill talk, and you can't get no points across using that.

MR. BARRY:

You can down in the mill.

MS. PAPADAKIS:

Not really. You should have the proper words and then they would listen.

MR. BARRY:

All right. Edie Papadakis, we want to thank you very much. It is July 19th. We're down at her house, and we're going to close it up.