pa1778data.pdf

U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS
HAER No. PA-115
(Page 20)
within the Duquesne Works between 1918 and 1945. Each was part
of a larger effort to organize the steel industry nationwide and
each, recognizing the realities of the job structures created by
the technology of steel production, abandoned the craft
exclusiveness of earlier union drives for a strategy based on
some variant of industrial unionism. As with previous efforts,
trade unionists sought to gain some measure of control over the
technology in terms of the time spent operating it and the
benefits derived from its output. Unlike previous efforts,
however, their success or failure depended less on the
increasingly outmoded occupational categories that formed the
basis of the Amalgamated Association's activity than on social
and political factors that bore little direct relationship to
technological development.
The first attempt at forming a union was made by the
American Federation of Labor after America entered World War I.
It culminated in the great steel strike of 1919. The impetus for
organizing resulted from the favorable political climate created
by an agreement between the A. F. of L. and the administration of
President Woodrow Wilson. In return for the Federation's support
of the national war effort, the administration, through the
auspices of its National War Labor Board (NWLB), asserted the
right of workers to organize into trade unions without any
interference by employers. Shortly thereafter, in August of
1918, the Federation created the National Committee for
Organizing the Iron and Steel Workers. The National Committee
consisted of representatives from twenty-four member unions of
the A. F. of L., each claiming some jurisdiction over workers in
the steel industry. In order to prevent a fragmented approach to
its organizational efforts, the National Committee agreed to
conduct a unified effort and to centralize the newly created
local chapters of the member unions at each steel center into
informal central bodies known as Iron and Steel Workers Councils.
The largest number of steelworkers — i.e. those having no skill
— were given over to the Amalgamated Association which claimed
about one-half of the total number of steelworkers.
Despite declarations of unity and pledges of financial
support by the member unions, the effort was hampered by
jurisdictional disputes and meager operating expenses.
Nevertheless, by skillfully appealing to immigrant workers around
the concept of the eight-hour workday and by associating national
war aims (making the world safe for democracy), with trade union
goals (the extension of industrial democracy in America), the
National Committee was able to enroll 100,000 steelworkers
nationwide by late in the spring of 1919. This number reached an
estimated 300,000 by September 22nd when the NWLB was dissolved
and the recalcitrance of employers led the National Committee to
call a nationwide strike for union recognition.