125 Years Strong – An IUOE History

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS
“Namely, to rescue our craft
from the low level to which it has
fallen, and by mutual effort to
endeavor to place ourselves on a
foundation sufficiently strong to
resist further encroachment.”
More-precise motives behind the
establishment of the union are further
provided in The Operating Engineers: The
Economic History of a Trade Union written in
1964 by Professor Garth L. Mangum. “The
International Union of Steam Engineers was
formed by the confluence of three groups
of steam engineers,” he wrote. “Those who
became disillusioned with the policies of the
National Association of Stationary Engineers
and organized independent local trade
unions; brewery engineers who withdrew
from the brewery workers union because
they found their problems and interests
distinctive from those of the other brewery
employees; and the hoisting engineers who
found organization of independent local
unions necessary to fit into the well-organized
structure of the building trades.”
To those ends, the 11 engineers from eight
locals in Massachusetts, New York, Ohio,
Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Michigan and
Colorado who first met on December 7, 1896,
dispatched their three delegates to the A.F.L.
convention in Cincinnati the following week
to petition for a charter. Representing nearly
400 engineers, brothers DeLong, Smales and
Tomsen, joined by Brother Lyon, prepared
the application during their meeting on
December 18 and submitted it to the A.F.L.,
which would grant a charter to the N.U.S.E.
on May 7, 1897.
Although the differences between the three
trades constituting the new engineers’ union
were often greater than their similarities, the
common denominator amongst them was
the steam engine. Hence, the name “National
Union of Steam Engineers” was chosen simply
because steam was practically the only source
of power at that time and was utilized almost
exclusively by all of the union’s membership.
Having officially established the first
representative body of practical steam engineers
in the country, the N.U.S.E. began granting
charters to its local unions. The charter for
Local No. 1 was issued to the Brotherhood
of Steam Engineers of Denver on June 23,
1897, after which the group from St. Louis
was designated Local No. 2; Chicago was
designated Local No. 3 and was the largest with
40 charter members; Boston was designated
Local No. 4 and was the only hoisting and
portable organization; Detroit was designated
Local No. 5; and Kansas City, Missouri, was
designated Local No. 6.
The N.U.S.E. then held that first convention
under the A.F.L. charter on August 9, 10 and
11, 1897, in A. Delabar’s Saloon and Hall
at 504 Market Street in St. Louis. During the
proceedings, the union chose its first elected
officers: Brother Frank Bowker of Boston,
president; Brother Frank Pfohl of Syracuse,
first vice president; Brother Samuel L. Bennett
of Kansas City, second vice president; Brother
C. J. Frealig of Detroit, secretary; and Brother
Smales of Denver, treasurer.
The convention also adopted a Declaration
of Principles, through which delegates
declared that a reduction of hours for a day’s
work “increases the intelligence and happiness
of the laborer” and vowed to secure a higher
standard of wages for its members. With
the proclamation, among other decrees the
delegates also recognized that the “interests
of all classes of labor are identical;” objected
to prison contract labor; urged adoption of a
national, uniform license law for engineers;
pledged to support the A.F.L.; endorsed the
union label; and urged “intelligent voting.”
Before the end of 1897, the first Canadian
locals joined the union, expanding its jurisdiction
across the northern border and prompting the
Members of International Union of Steam Engineers Local No. 66 of Pittsburgh pose during
the city’s Labor Day celebration in 1905, during which they also participated in a parade.
union to change its name to the International
Union of Steam Engineers of America. Shortly
after, however, its General Executive Board
shortened that to the International Union of
Steam Engineers (I.U.S.E.), and on December
17, 1897, at the A.F.L. convention, the union
received permission to officially revise its name.
Initial Trials, Organizing Effort
While the fledgling I.U.S.E. was
firmly established on paper,
throughout its first decade of
existence, the union was little more than a
loose association of a few strong and many
weak self-governing local unions. What’s
more, as The Economic History of a Trade
Union points out, from the time of its
founding until 1940, the dual nature of the
organization’s membership, brought together
almost solely by their common utilization
of steam, made it “essentially two unions in
one – an organization of stationary engineers
and a building trades union of operating
engineers. In both branches, it was strictly a
craft organization.”
Early on, the union was dominated by its
stationary engineers, who operated immobile
steam engines that produced heat, electric power
and refrigeration in large commercial buildings,
factories and breweries. (1) It also included a
much smaller portable membership of factory
employees, marine engineers, operators at mines
and workers in the building trades – although The
Economic History of a Trade Union notes, “The
building and construction industry eventually
became its mainstay, though the stationary
engineers remain an important segment of the
union’s membership.”
After President Bowker passed away while
in office on January 1, 1898, and First Vice-
President Pfohl assumed the presidency, the
union began to rapidly grow in membership
and, to some degree, prominence. As of that
date, the I.U.S.E. had a total of 788 members,
with Local 1 thought to be its largest local with
200 members, the July 1902 International Steam
Engineer reported. Less than five years later, by
October 1902 the union consisted of 166 local
unions from coast to coast totaling more than
19,000 members in good standing (that is, any
person who has fulfilled the requirements for
membership in the organization, including
payment of required union dues and fees).
However, the membership growth during
the union’s first half decade was primarily the
result of independent local unions coming
into the international. (1)
The I.U.S.E. made its first earnest attempts
to organize new members and bring existing
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