The United Steelworkers International named Dave McCall interim president this week after its previous president, Tom Conway, passed away from cancer this week at the age of 71.
McCall spoke with WESA about his longtime relationship with Conway and the legacy he has left behind as leader of the 850,000 member union.
McCall had been working for eight years as a mechanic at Bethlehem Steel’s Burns Harbor Steel Plant in Indiana when Conway started his apprenticeship as a millwright in 1978. Conway was, at the time, staying in a tent on the beach of a nearby state park, while the rest of Conway’s family lived back in New Jersey. Conway had been training jet engine mechanics, after serving in the Air Force, when he left New Jersey for the job at the Burns Harbor Coke plant.
It turned out both men were born on the exact same day within about 30 minutes of each other and, after they met in 1978, became friends and worked together in some capacity ever since. McCall’s two daughters are a similar age, as Conway’s three sons — and they lived five minutes away from each other.
McCall said Conway was good with a sledgehammer and a blow torch, while he was more skilled with micrometers and calipers. “I used to say he was a ‘heat and beat it’ millwright and I was a 'hone it and stone it' millwright.” McCall said. “So we used to give each other a bad time about that.”
In 1983, McCall said, the steel industry was suffering from devastating layoffs. Bethlehem Steel was about to invest in building the latest technology at its plant: a continuous caster. But at the time, the company’s plan was to use outside contractors. Conway, McCall said, negotiated to get hundreds of the plant’s laid off mechanics back to work in helping to build the new machinery.
“That probably got him a lot of notoriety at the plant and what propelled him onto the international staff,” McCall said.
When Conway was named president of the Steelworkers in 2019, McCall moved to Pittsburgh to serve as vice president. Conway had led high-level bargaining sessions as vice president of the union since 2004. And as president Conway pushed the union to think about the future and expand into new areas recently, including green energy jobs, McCall said.
Conway was diagnosed with cancer in May and his disease progressed rapidly. McCall was able to meet with Conway a couple days before he passed away. They talked about their days back at the plant, his legacy as leader of the union “and a bunch of stories I would never tell,” McCall said.
“The last day I was with him, while I was with him, he probably got three or four phone calls from our district directors asking for guidance,” McCall said. “And he was still answering those calls and still advising them and giving them directions about what their next steps ought to be. So he was doing his job right up to the end.”
