125 Years Strong – An IUOE History

INTERNATIONAL UNION OF OPERATING ENGINEERS
ability to keep an adequate organizing staff in
the field. (1) “None of the efforts of the local
unions to fence in the power of the international
officers by constitutional restrictions was
as effective as their tight grasp on the purse
strings,” Professor Mangum even declares in
The Economic History of a Trade Union.
In effect, locals fiscally strapping the
international officers would generally continue
until after 1940. “Each convention brought
numerous resolutions calling upon the
international to assign organizers to certain
regions, and calls for aid continued between
conventions,” as The Economic History of a
Trade Union describes. “Yet the membership
shared the universal preference for receiving
services without paying the necessary costs.”
New Success in a New Century
Meanwhile, the I.U.S.E. was also
greatly hindered by the anti-union
open-shop movement that persisted
in the United States. In particular, the actions
of the National Association of Stationary
Engineers (which would change its name in
1928 to the National Association of Power
Engineers) stifled the union as the association
openly allied with the anti-union efforts of
some I.U.S.E. signatory employers.
The union was also involved in the fight
for a standardized eight-hour workday,
having already during its 1899 convention
in Boston set May 1, 1900, as “the time for
the inauguration of the eight-hour system.”
While that objective did not come to fruition,
in 1902 the union accelerated demands for
Members of International Union of Steam Engineers Local No. 4 of Boston work on construction of the Cape Cod Canal in
Massachusetts, which was built from June 1909 into July 1914 to connect Cape Cod Bay in the north to Buzzards Bay in the south.
the eight-hour day, even carrying the fight
to the U.S. Congress. (The engineers and
all of labor would continue that fight until
Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards
Act, which limited the workweek to 44 hours
before overtime wages would be paid, on June
25, 1938, and amended the law to limit the
workweek to 40 hours on June 26, 1940.)
During that time, the engineers’ union was
also fending off jurisdictional challenges from
the unions of brewery workers, stationary
firemen and coal miners. At the I.U.S.E. Sixth
Annual Convention held September 2, 1902,
in Pittsburgh, General President George V.
Lighthall, while reporting advances made by
the union, also discussed the jurisdictional
disputes between engineers and those unions.
While the A.F.L. had recently ruled that
the International Union of Brewery Workers
could not claim jurisdiction over steam
engineers employed in breweries - a decision
that convention delegates praised - difficulties
with the brewery workers continued. I.U.S.E.
Canadian locals were also having similar
troubles with the brewery workers, compelling
the A.F.L. to issue a new directive in the spring
of 1903 that declared, “We are convinced
beyond question that the United Brewery
Workers’ International Union seriously errs and
stands in the way of its own success, provoking
antagonism from sources which could and
should be fraternal, helpful and cooperative,
if it voluntarily and broadmindedly gave its
full adhesion to the recommendations and
decisions of the Executive Council of the
American Federation of Labor.”
Despite the jurisdictional disturbances, the
I.U.S.E. enjoyed steady growth and relative
success in both the United States and Canada. In
fact, steam-engineer delegates to the Canadian
Labour Congress in 1903 succeeded in changing
the congress’ by-laws to require all local unions,
irrespective of previous affiliations, to belong to a
national or international organization chartered
by the A.F.L. in order to hold seats in the
Canadian Congress. According to the I.U.O.E.
50 th anniversary essay in the December 1946
International Engineer journal, the amendment
marked the first time in the history of the congress
that Canadian engineers “claimed recognition as
factors in the labor movement.”
During 1903, the I.U.S.E. also approved
95 applications for new charters and 50 new
contract agreements for locals. Before the year
was out, the union further added roughly 10,000
new engineers to its international membership.
With its increasing strength, during the
union’s international convention held at
Wheeling, West Virginia, from September
12 to 20, 1903, delegates unanimously
passed a resolution through which the union
would wield its new-found power to entice
manufacturers to place advertisements in
the union’s monthly magazine. The degree
declared, “Resolved, that we demonstrate to
the world our belief in the great principles of
unionism of assisting those who are willing to
assist us, by every member hereafter, confining
his purchases and recommendations (where
prices, efficiency and deliveries are equal)
exclusively to those whose friendship for the
organization is shown by having their names
appear monthly in the official ‘Of Whom
to Buy’ Index published in the International
Steam Engineer, our official journal.”
Subsequently, the union sent communications
from General President Bruner to businesses
suggesting they consider advertising in journals
while also explaining, in so many words, that
the union was in a strong position to advocate
on their behalf to potential buyers of their
products. In addition to the resolution being
transcribed in the letter, it further read, in part,
“… today, our members control the purchase
of more machinery and supplies than any body
of men in the known world … We note on
going over the above-mentioned Index that
the name of your company does not appear
LABOR OMNIA VINCIT
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