Labor Relations in the Steel Industry

Report Outline
Impending Labor Conflicts in Steel
Union Organizers vs. Steel Corporation
The Overthrow of Trade Unionism in Steel
The Great Steel Strike of 1919
Company Unions in the Steel Industry

Impending Labor Conflicts in Steel

Announced Objectives of the Opposing Forces

A trade union organizing campaign, expected to lead to a strike in the basic iron and steel industry before the end of the year, was begun July 1 by the newly-formed Committee for Industrial Organization, headed by John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America. The degree of success which attends this effort to compel corporations in the steel industry to share control of wages, hours, and working conditions in their plants with outside trade unions may profoundly influence the future form of labor organization in the United States. The issue presented by the organizing campaign, as formulated at the outset, is whether the steel companies shall in future deal collectively with their employees through their own plant unions or through an industrial union organized on a national scale and representing all workers in the industry.

In anticipation of the organizing campaign, the American Iron and Steel Institute, representing 95 per cent of the productive capacity of the industry, issued a statement of its position, June 28, which was reproduced in part in advertisements in some 375 newspapers on July 1. The advertisement was addressed to “the public and the employees in the steel industry.” It said there were many disturbing indications that the promoters of the organizing drive would employ coercion and intimidation, and would foment strikes.

The objective of the campaign is the “closed shop,” which prohibits the employment, of anyone not a union member. The steel industry will oppose any attempt to compel its employees to join a union or to pay tribute for the right to work.