pa1778data.pdf

U.S. STEEL DUQUESNE WORKS
HAER No. PA-115
(Page 25)
to recognize the new body if it wanted to maintain control of
employee-management relations. After the new organization had
been set up, Maloy and Mullen openly joined the CIO's Steel
Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) to capture the company-wide
ERP for independent unionism. Over the next several months, the
two men, who were elected to the top employee representative
posts in the new central body, worked skillfully to gain the
support of their fellow representatives for pressing aggressive
demands upon the Corporation, In the process, they demonstrated
the inability, from the employees perspective, of trying to work
within a company controlled industrial labor relations system.
In January of 1937, the ERP at Carnegie-Illinois met for the last
time. Meanwhile, SWOC representatives signed up 125,000 new
members, many from the steel mills of Carnegie-Illinois. Two
months later, U. S. Steel's employee-relations program was in
shambles and labor problems prevented the company and employees
from profiting from an upturn in the economy. The company
finally signed a collective bargaining agreement with the SWOC in
1937. 31
The new agreement positively addressed many of the concerns
raised by employee representatives at the Duquesne Works. It
called for a ten percent general wage increase, a guaranteed
eight hour day, a forty hour work week provided work was
available, and a seniority system for both promotions and
layoffs. A five-step grievance procedure was also set up,
providing for equal and exclusive representation of both union
and management officials. The last step called for all
unresolved disputes to be decided by a neutral umpire chosen by
both parties. In the next few years, the union and company
agreed on a common base rate of pay before tonnage incentives
kicked in, and negotiated a wage classification system that
standardized rates for a set number of job classifications
throughout the industry in 1943. 32
Plant and Community, 1918-1945
World War I, the Depression, and World War II all had
significant influence on the relationship between the steelworks
and the community of Duquesne. World War I caused a labor
shortage and increased wartime production requirements. As
31 Bernstein, Turbulent Years, 459-67.
32 "SWOC Agreement with the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Company of
March 17, 1937" in the Industrial Labor Relations Records of the
Duquesne Works at the Labor Archives, University of Pittsburgh;
Mark McColloch, "Consolidating Industrial Citizenship: The USWA at
War and Peace, 1939-46" in Forging a Union of Steel: Philip Murray,
SWOC & the United Steelworkersr (Ithaca: 1987), 69-76.