I too live in Pittsburgh and I can tell you, the Steel industry at the time was full of a lot of bloat and other things.... because being the only industrialized post war power had thrown off a lot of wealth and lead to a lot of complacency and bloat.
Ask any of the old hunky’s left what happened if you went over your quota in the mills.....
There is a lot behind the decline of steel, its not as simple as black and white. Legal and policy factors, combined with management that didn’t react to the growing threat as the rest of the world came back from WWII until it was too late. However, don’t kid yourself, the Union helped hasten the decline as well.
While in construction since the late 60s, I did spend a little time in the steel fabrication industry in the early 70s. I had the privilege to work with a Dutchman that had emigrated from Holland after the war as a youngster.
Because of his wide experience he had a way of looking at things that was especially revealing. He pointed out why we had begun to buy Japanese steel. First of all, their mills were much newer than ours — thickness and related quality was superior to what came out of our older mills at that time (74). He pointed out how, like the auto industry, the steel industry had both union and management screwing over the consumer taking all they could at the trough. No concern for wages staying under foreign pressure or investment in mills that we vastly outdated. Eventually steel and cars from halfway around the world from newer plants were less costly and better quality than what came out of the rust belt.
Five years and ten years later, we began to read this same analysis in business magazines.