This research develops a human resource profile of, and examines a human resource problem concerning the steel industry in the United States (US). Within the parameters of the stan dard industrial classification system in the US, the industry group with which this research is concerned is number 331, steel works, blast furnaces, and rolling and finishing (Office of Management and Budget, 1987).
The human resource profile and the human resource problem in this research are concerned with the industry's blue collar workforce. Thus, five sub classifications of the steel indus try are involved. These sub industrial classifications are (3312) steel works, blast furnaces including coke ovens, and rolling mills, (3313) electrometallurgical products, except steel, (3315) steel wiredrawing and steel nails and spikes, (3316) cold rolled steel sheet, strip, and bars, and (3317)steel pipe and tubes (Office of Management and Budget, 1987).
Females account for 44.4 percent of the American workforce (Paxton, 1989). In the steel industry, however, females account for less than one quarter of the blue collar work force (Paxton, 1989). A similar under representation exists with respect to ethnic and racial minority population groups.
Output in the American steel industry in 1989 was just in excess of two thirds the output level of 1970 (Paxton, 1989). This problem is the result of a combination of the interrelated factors of foreign competition, and declining productivity in the domestic industry. The industry's declining productivity, in turn, is the result of a failure on the part of industry management to invest in the modernization of productive facili ties, and an ineffective use of human resources. The ineffec tive use of human resources in the industry is the product of the combined effects of labor union footdragging with respect to work rule changes, and managerial indifference, at best, or outright hostility, at worst, to th...