Business is bad at Micky’s. Since it opened in 1934, this North Point Blvd. tavern gets famously packed when the day shift lets out at Sparrows Point and steelworkers lumber in to get the mill’s heat out of their bodies.

But Micky’s is anything but full now. “It’s horrible. It’s depressing,” co-owner Jimmy Narutowicz said on Friday, referring to the cascading shutdowns that first idled the blast furnace in July and now will close most of the mill through the end of the year. “You know, 90 percent of my check-cashing business used to be from employees at the Point. Now it’s 10 percent,” he said.

The Brew has been covering the shutdown and pending layoffs closely. Last week, we told you what parent company Severstal has disclosed (very little) and what the local union president says (a bit more). We’ve also reported that Severstal’s owner, Alexei Mordashov, has rejected offers to buy Sparrows Point, an option pushed by the union as the best way to “save” the mill from a permanent shutdown.

We stopped by Micky’s on Friday afternoon to hear what rank-and-filers were thinking. We found just a handful of guys nursing beers in plastic cups and playing video games. Here’s what they said:

BOB BARRETT has worked in central maintenance for 46 years. Over that period, he’s watched employment at the Point drop from 25,000 to 2,500. He’s one of 1,800 members of the United Steelworkers Union (USW), which is expecting as many as 1,200 layoffs over the next couple of weeks.

“Bad times. That’s all I can tell you. Could be a lot of mismanagement. We’re not selling anything. Whether Severstal’s been diverting our customers to their non-union plant in Mississippi, I can’t really say. But I do know they are putting their money into Mississippi and [another plant at] Dearborn [Michigan], and they don’t care about this plant.

“There’s going to be a big layoff. The young guys are going to suffer. The community’s gonna be hurt. But if they let Sparrows Point set, they’re not going to get anything out of it. They’re gonna lose their customers and their assets. So I can’t figure out their strategy.”

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RODNEY DONALD, who also works in maintenance, is one of the young guys that Bob Barrett says will suffer the most from layoffs. He has worked at Sparrows Point for 15 years.

“Morale’s low. Everybody’s down. Everybody’s just hoping they’re not being laid off. In an economy like we’re in, how do you find work? How do you fight back?

“The rank-and-file mainly feels we’ve been put in this position by design. Severstal’s plan is to bust the union, or attempt to bust us. Think of this: Severstal bought the mill two years ago and now they’re diverting orders to other plants. It’s like buying a house and then gutting it. They’re gutting Sparrows and killing our jobs.

“I feel that our local officials, the governor, state delegates and federal officials, (Senator Barbara) Mikulski should be more involved in helping with the problems we face at Sparrows Point because current and former membership have always been there for them.”

“Am I worried? Of course. Of course I am. I have a family.”

Asked what he would do if he is laid off, Donald’s eyes glistened and he paused a long time before saying, “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

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RON SHAFFER, a crane operator at the Basic Oxygen Furnace, took voluntary leave in July when the furnace was shut by Severstal. He will report back to work on October 3, at which time he expects to be laid off. He lives in Pennsylvania. but also stays in rented quarters closer to the mill when he’s working there.

“I think the Russians [Severstal] are going to reduce our wages. Bring us under their control and keep us down. We can make steel, but they can’t make money on it. So the heck with the little guy!

“I got enough years in that I can retire. But I want to stick around and pay off some of my bills.”

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STEVEN BROWN has worked 37 years at the hot mill, which is scheduled to operate for three more weeks to consume its inventory and then be idled through the end of 2010.

“Sell us. The Russians haven’t been fair. They’ve been doing nothing.

“I don’t worry [about being laid off] cause it don’t help.”

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JOHN HUBER works for LaFarge, a company inside the Sparrows Point plant that processes cement from slag. Since the blast furnace shut in July, the company has been importing slag. Huber has worked for outside contractors affiliated with the mill since 1981.

“It really would have been better if the government didn’t force Mittal to sell Sparrows Point to Severstal [two years ago]. Severstal bought the Point at a fire sale. Since then, they took everything out of it. They abused the equipment, got what they could get without reinvesting. Plus the economy has worked against them.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just know that whatever happens, it’s all about money.”

RANDY YOST is a locomotive engineer on the Patapsco & Back Rivers Railroad, the in-house railroad that shuttles material between departments. He was interviewed a few doors down from Micky’s, at the Full House Saloon. When the “L” blast furnace shut down two months ago, Yost was assigned to track maintenance.

“I think this is a push-and-shove thing between the Steelworkers and the company. They still don’t have a contract and they got to come to a compromise.

“There’s nothing etched in stone that they have to bring back up the L furnace. But I think they will eventually. When the economy dictates to them that they have to. This is some of the best steel made in the United States.

“I could get laid off. I’m sixth from the top [in seniority], so if they lay me off, just about everything has to be shut down. But you gotta feel for the younger employees. They gotta have a future down there. That’s what we’re striving for – a future.”

– Fern Shen also contributed to this story