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The Unionization of the American Steel Industry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
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If there is any single series of events in American labor history which may be characterized as of momentous import, it is the unionization of steel. After a crushing defeat by the United States Steel Corporation in 1901, the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, A.F. of L., had eked out a precarious and meager existence. Unsuccessful organizing campaigns in 1919–20 and in 1933 left the Amalga-mated the mere shell of an organization. Average membership in 1935 was only 9,869; in that year, 84 local lodges had been disbanded, and only four new ones established. Not a single national organizer was in the field. Against this unpromising background the great drama that was to convert the citadel of antiunionism in the United States into a highly organized industry unfolded swiftly with the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization in the closing days of the year 1935.
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- Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1956
References
Page 8 note 1 Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, Annual Reports of International Officers to the 61st Annual Convention, 1936, pp. 22, 113.Google Scholar
Page 8 note 2 American Federation of Labor, Report of Proceedings of the Fifty-Fourth Annual Convention, 1934, p. 587.Google Scholar
Page 9 note 1 Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, Annual Reports of International Officers to the 61st Annual Convention, 1936, p. 23.Google Scholar
Page 9 note 2 American Federation of Labor, Report of the Proceedings of the Fifty-Fifth Annual Convention, 1935, p. 97.Google Scholar
Page 9 note 3 Interview with Brophy, John, March 19, 1955.Google Scholar
Page 10 note 2 American Federation of Labor, Report of Proceedings of the Fifty-Fifth Annual Convention, 1935, p. 539.Google Scholar
Page 10 note 2 Ibid., p. 562.
Page 10 note 3 For the text of the proposal, see Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, Annual Reports of International Officers to the 61st Annual Convention, 1936, p. 132.Google Scholar
Page 11 note 1 American Federation of Labor, Report of the Proceedings of the Fifty-Sixth Annual Convention, 1936, p. 86.Google Scholar
Page 11 note 2 Union News Service, January 20, 1936.Google Scholar
Page 11 note 3 For the full text of this letter, see Proceedings of the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor in the Matter of Charges Filed by the Metal Trades Department, Augusts, 1936, pp. 37–38.
Page 12 note 1 Proceedings of the Executive Council, Charges Filed by the Metal Trades Department, op. cit., pp. 39–41.
Page 12 note 2 Union News Service, April 13, 1936.Google Scholar
Page 12 note 3 Ibid., April 20, 1936.
Page 13 note 1 American Federation of Labor, Report of the Proceedings of the Fifty-Sixth Annual Convention, 1936, p. 88.Google Scholar
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Page 14 note 1 Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, Journal of Proceedings of the International Lodge, 1936, p. 2779.Google Scholar
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Page 14 note 5 Ibid., p. 126.
Page 16 note 1 Union News Service, June 15, 1936.Google Scholar
Page 16 note 2 Interview with Brophy, John, March 19, 1955.Google Scholar
Page 16 note 3 Minutes of the Organizational Meeting of the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee (typewritten), Pittsburgh, June 17, 1936.
Page 16 note 4 Union News Service, June 22, 1936.Google Scholar
Page 16 note 5 Ibid.
Page 17 note 1 Minutes of a Meeting of the Steel Workers' Organizing Committee (typewritten), September 29, 1936.
Page 17 note 2 Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, Annual Report of International Officers to 62nd Annual Convention, April, 1937, pp. 139, 160.Google Scholar
Page 17 note 3 Ibid., p. 339.
Page 17 note 4 Ibid., p. 3.
Page 17 note 5 U.S. Senate, 77th Congress, 1st Session, Committee on Education and Labor, Report No. 151, 1941, p. 10.Google Scholar
Page 18 note 1 In 1929, the five largest firms controlled 68.2 per cent of the steel ingot capacity of the industry, a pattern of concentration which remained approximately unchanged in 1936.
Page 18 note 2 Report No. 151, 1941, op. cit., p. 10.
Page 18 note 3 The employment data, which include white collar employees as well as wage earners, are from Schroeder, Gertrude G., The Growth of Major Steel Companies, 1900–1950, Johns Hopkins University, 1952, pp. 216–222.Google Scholar Capacity data, which are for the year 1938, are from Temporary National Economic Committee, The Structure of Industry, Monograph No. 27, 1941, p. 258.Google Scholar
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Page 19 note 2 Loc. cit. – The term “7-a” refers to Section 7-a of the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933).
Page 19 note 3 Steel Workers' Organizing Committee, Proceedings of the First Wage and Policy Convention, 1937, p. 31.Google Scholar
Page 19 note 4 Brooks, op. cit., pp. 92–94.
Page 20 note 1 Steel Labor, September 25, 1936, p. 1.
Page 20 note 2 Ibid., p. 2.
Page 20 note 3 Brooks, op. cit., p. 99.
Page 21 note 1 Taylor, Myron C., Ten Years of Steel, United States Steel Corporation, 1938, p. 39.Google Scholar
Page 21 note 2 The precise amounts of the increase varied from job to job. The percentage increase was to total slightly less than 10 per cent, with individual adjustments to eliminate wage inequities. The sliding scale arrangement tied wages to the cost-of-living index on a quarterly basis. All of the other leading steel companies made similar adjustments at the same time, though without the sliding scale feature. See Iron Age, November 12, 1936, p. 72.
Page 21 note 3 Steel Labor, November 20, 1936, p. 1.
Page 21 note 4 Steel Labor, January 9, 1937, p. 3.
Page 21 note 5 The Iron Age, January 7, 1937, p. 192.
Page 21 note 6 The Iron Age, February 18, 1937, p. 74. It is intimated in the source that Carnegie-Illinois was prepared to make a wage adjustment along these lines.
Page 23 note 1 Myron C. Taylor, op. cit., pp. 40–42.
Page 23 note 2 For a background reconstruction of the conversations, see Magazine, Fortune, May, 1937, p. 91.Google Scholar
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Page 23 note 4 Steel Labor, March 20, 1937, p. 2.
Page 24 note 1 Gertrude G. Schroeder, op. cit., p. 216.
Page 24 note 2 Myron C. Taylor, op. cit., p. 43.
Page 24 note 3 Magazine, Fortune, May, 1937, p. 92.Google Scholar
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Page 25 note 1 The recognition of the S.W.O.C. by Carnegie-Illinois by no means marked the demise of its company unions. Following the agreement, “the little Supreme Court” met with Benjamin Fairless, president of Carnegie-Illinois, and negotiated a wage increase similar to that accorded the S.W.O.C. The group was also told that the company was prepared to recognize it as the bargaining agent for employees who favored the company unions. This organization appealed to William Green, president of the A.F. of L., for assistance, but failing to get any encouragement from him, approached John P. Frey, head of the A.F. of L. Metal Trades Council. (The Iron Age, March 11, 1937, p. 107.) Frey met with the group and presented a plan for organization along craft lines, which was rejected, and it was decided instead to reorganize as a completely independent outside organization. (The Iron Age, March 18, 1937.) A new organization was formed, called the American Union of Steel Workers, at the end of March. (The Iron Age, April 1, 1937). However, the fledgling organization was given a death blow when Carnegie-Illinois signed an N.L.R.B. stipulation agreeing to disestablish relationships with the existing employee representation plans after the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act.
Page 25 note 2 Magazine, Fortune, May, 1937, p. 179.Google Scholar
Page 26 note 1 Steel Labor, March 6, 1937, p. 4.
Page 26 note 2 Ibid., p. 3.
Page 26 note 3 Girdler, Tom M., Boot Straps, New York, 1943, p. 226.Google Scholar
Page 26 note 4 U.S. Senate, 77th Congress, 1st Session, Violations of Free Speech and Rights of Labor, Report No. 151, 1941, p. 117.Google Scholar
Page 27 note 1 This section is based in large part upon the hearings and reports of a subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor of the United States Senate, 74th-76th Congress, under the chairmanship of Senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr. These hearings, which are hereinafter cited as La Follette Committee Hearings, were held over a period of several years. Although at times quite partisan in its efforts to ferret out evidence of what it regarded as wrongful labor practices on the part of the steel companies, the subcommittee nevertheless accumulated thousands of pages of information and testimony relevant to industrial relations in the steel industry during the years 1935 to 1939.
Page 27 note 2 Steel Labor, April 10, 1937.
Page 27 note 3 Ibid., May 1, 1937.
Page 27 note 4 The S.W.O.C. claimed two out of three members of a Special Grievance Committee of the Bethlehem employee representation plan, and by April, 1937, 150 out of 250 plan representatives. Steel Labor, January 23, 1937; ibid., April 10, 1937.
Page 27 note 5 Steel Labor, January 9, 1937.
Page 27 note 6 Robert R. R. Brooks, op. cit., p. 135.
Page 27 note 7 Loc. cit.
Page 28 note 1 La Follette Committee Hearings, pp. 13, 792.
Page 28 note 2 In the Matter of Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation, 1 N.L.R.B. 503, 1936, p. 503.Google Scholar
Page 28 note 3 The Iron Age, May 13, 1937, p. 103.
Page 28 note 4 Robert R. R. Brooks, op. cit., p. 123.
Page 29 note 1 The Iron Age, May 20, 1937, p. 72.
Page 29 note 2 The Iron Age, May 27, 1937, p. 92.
Page 29 note 3 Steel Labor, June 5, 1937, p. 1.
Page 29 note 4 Robert R. R. Brooks, op. cit., p. 134.
Page 29 note 5 For the text of this statement, see La Follette Committee Hearings, p. 13908.
Page 30 note 1 La Follette Committee Report No. 151, p. 124. There is some evidence that the calling of this strike was premature, and that the S.W.O.C. would have preferred not to have become embroiled with the second largest producer in the industry until it had finished with Republic and Youngstown, particularly since it was weak organizationally in Bethlehem. The local union called the strike in sympathy with the local employees of a captive railroad controlled by Bethlehem Steel, who had gone on strike the previous day in protest against refusal of the company to bargain.
Page 30 note 2 The Iron Age, June 3, 1937, p. 86 A.
Page 30 note 3 The Iron Age, May 13, 1937, p. 117.
Page 31 note 1 It is difficult to trace precisely the curve of economic activity for the industry during the period of the strike because of the influence of the strike itself. The evaluation in the text is based upon discussion of the business outlook that appeared in The Iron Age, the weekly trade publication of the steel industry.
Page 31 note 2 On May 27, 1937, the day after the outbreak of the strike, Girdler was elected president of the American Iron and Steel Institute. Eugene Grace, the outgoing president, remarked cryptically that “there was a real contest in this election and you will appreciate the choice of the directors,” and “it was left to his listeners to assume that present labor policies in the industry had an influence in the election of new officers.” (The Iron Age, June 3, 1937, p. 32.)
Page 31 note 3 Tom M. Girdler, op. cit., p. 317.
Page 32 note 1 Tom M. Girdler, op. cit., pp. 358–359.
Page 32 note 2 Williams, Pierce, Essence of the Steel Strikes, in Survey Graphic, October, 1937, p. 516.Google Scholar
Page 32 note 3 The facts concerning this incident are primarily from United States Senate, 77th Congress, 1st session, Committee on Education and Labor, Report No. 46, Part 2, 1937.Google Scholar
Page 33 note 1 Committee on Education and Labor, op. cit., p. 14.
Page 33 note 2 Ibid., p. 21.
Page 34 note 1 Committee on Education and Labor, Report No. 46, Part 2, 1937, pp. 31–34.Google Scholar
Page 34 note 2 The Iron Age, June 17, 1937, p. 94.
Page 34 note 3 Committee on Education and Labor, Report No. 46, Part 2, 1937, p. 252.Google Scholar
Page 34 note 4 The Iron Age, July 1, 1937, p. 66C.
Page 34 note 5 The Iron Age, June 17, 1937, p. 90B.
Page 35 note 1 The Iron Age, July 8, 1937, p. 1.
Page 35 note 2 Steel Labor, March 18, 1938.
Page 35 note 3 La Follette Committee Hearings, p. 13938.
Page 36 note 1 La Follette Committee Hearings, p. 13941.
Page 36 note 2 Sweeny, Vincent D., The United Steelworkers of America (no date).Google Scholar
Page 36 note 3 Robert R. R. Brooks, op. cit., p. 160.
Page 37 note 1 Robert R. R. Brooks, op. cit., p. 162.
Page 37 note 2 Steel Labor, February 23, 1940, p. 1.
Page 38 note 1 Robert R. R. Brooks, op. cit., p. 147.
Page 38 note 2 Vincent Sweeney, op. cit., p. 48.
Page 38 note 3 Steel Labor, August 29, 1941, p. 1.
Page 39 note 1 Steel Labor, March 20, 1941, p. 1.
Page 40 note 1 See, e.g., The Iron Age, July 30, 1942, p. 93.
Page 40 note 2 Steel Labor, June 30, 1942, p. 2.
Page 40 note 3 United Steelworkers of America, Proceedings of the First Constitutional Convention, 1942, pp. 36, 41.Google Scholar
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