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In February 1984 Roblin Steel was celebrating its 20th anniversary in Dunkirk and the future looked good, according to a headline in the OBSERVER. The company was recovering from a slump in the steel industry and was almost back at full employment levels, but less than three years later, the plant was closed and some 280 people were out of a job.
On Saturday at 3 p.m., a final reunion for employees will be held at the Conservation Club on Mullet Street in Dunkirk. A flyer advertises the event as “Our last hurrah get together.” Snacks and a cash bar, along with a chance to reconnect with former coworkers, are part of the proceedings.
Hank Hoisington was a longtime president of United Steelworkers of America Local 6599, which represented most of the union workers at the facility.
“We were the first at Roblin Steel, we negotiated into our contract a labor-management committee … and we negotiated a total of seven concessions, wage cuts, trying to keep the company alive back then,” he stated. “We did everything to try and keep that company going. Scott Thrasher was the plant manager and Ted Griewisch was the administrator of human resources, and without them negotiating those last seven concessions, which really kept the company going for the last seven years we were in operation just about, it wouldn’t have happened, a lot of that would never have been done. They were very instrumental in those seven concessions we made with Dan Roblin.”
Hoisington was the first-ever local union president on a steel company’s board of directors, and said when company president Dan Roblin Jr. passed away, the new CEO and board of directors decided to close the plant and sell its assets. Hoisington said all attempts to keep the plant open were rejected by the board.
He was asked what the impetus was to have the reunion.
“Our thought here is, let’s do it. We do have some funds left over from the last one and we wanted to do it because our historian, Fred Bolling, and much of our group that was in the forefront of this operation, are passing on,” he replied. “So the guys came up to me and said ‘Why don’t we just have one more get-together to see how many of the old-timers we can get down there?’
“I said OK, let’s do it. We can do it. People are passing and we never know who’s going to be here tomorrow. We had a pretty large group there and it was a good group over there. There was nothing more interesting in my life than working at Roblin Steel.”
Hoisington said there were only two serious injuries he could recall during the plant’s operation.
Roblin poured its first “heat” of steel on Jan. 24, 1964. Roblin, in addition to the Dunkirk plant, at one time consisted of a North Tonawanda rolling mill, Lackawanna scrap facility and four other plants manufacturing ceiling grids.
Questions about the reunion can be directed to Hoisington at 965-2007 or Don Brisky at 366-4381.