In November 1984, Bruce Springsteen made an unusual stop on his “Born in the U.S.A.” tour: a Food Bank near a shuttered steel mill in Maywood, CA. The Food Bank had been established after the Bethlehem Steel Corporation shuttered its mill there in 1982, resulting in job losses for thousands of workers represented by United Steelworkers Local 1845. With funds from the union’s Oldtimers Foundation and the support of dozens of volunteers, most of whom were themselves displaced steel workers, the Food Bank provided meals to over 5000 families a month in addition to some 200 hot meals a day at job training programs and churches nearby. It represented one of the many creative, solidaristic ways that industrial workers responded to the devastating wave of plant closures in Southern California in the early 1980s.
At the invitation of Local 1845, Bruce Springsteen visited the steelworkers’ Food Bank during his tour stop in Los Angeles, donating tickets to the union for each of his seven sold out shows at the L.A. Sports Arena. Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” album featured anthems about the plight of the American working-class, laced with nostalgia, disillusionment, and defiant patriotism. His performances on the tour often included direct appeals to his fans to support unemployed workers between songs and at his concerts in L.A., he lifted up the cause of the workers at Bethlehem Steel. He invited Local 1845’s Oldtimers’ Foundation to set up a table in the lobby at the shows and encouraged his fans to donate to their cause during the intermission. According to the union, they raised $900 the first night and another $15,000 from fans in the days that followed, in addition to Springsteen’s personal $10,000 donation to support their Thanksgiving food distribution. In total, Springsteen raised an estimated $50,000 to support steelworkers in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Washington, Arizona, and California during his 1984 tour.
During his visit to the Food Bank, Springsteen also joined a session of one of the Oldtimer Foundation’s other programs: the Theater Workers Workshop, convened by playwright and actress Susan Tanner. A member of the Screen Actors Guild who was active in her union, Tanner had obtained a grant from the California Arts Foundation to conduct oral histories with the displaced workers, but through her visits to the union hall, was inspired to take a different approach. Her workshops became a space for the displaced workers to express themselves through poetry and performance, with Tanner offering exercising and writing prompts to stimulate their creativity. During his visit to the union hall, Springsteen joined one of their sessions and read a poem that had been written by one of the displaced workers, 30-year-old Luis Rodriguez, which was reprinted in the Los Angeles Times:
My babies were born
under the Bethlehem health plan.
My rent was paid
because of those long and humid
days and nights.
I recall being lowered
into oily and greasy pits
or standing unsteadily on two-inch beams
thirty feet in the air,
and wondering if I would survive
to savor another weekend.
I recall my fellow workers
who did not survive;
burned alive from caved-in furnace roofs
or severed in two by burning red steel rods
while making your production quotas.
Using poetry written by the members of the Theater Workers Workshop, Tanner and the workers eventually created a play based on their writing called “Lady Beth,” which they performed at venues around southern California. Springsteen gave permission for them to use his song, “My Home Town,” as the score in the play and, after seeing it himself, contributed the funds needed for them to take the play on the road. “Lady Beth” was performed in 16 cities during the tour and became the subject of a PBS documentary called “A Steel Life Drama.”
Learn more:
Burns, Melinda, “Springsteen Strikes a Chord With Steelworkers” Los Angeles Times, Oct 28, 1984, p. D14.
Japenga, A., “Springsteen pays a visit to union hall: SPRINGSTEEN: Rock star visits union hall,” Los Angeles Times, Nov 08 1984, p. OC-d1.