In Johnstown, town residents coalesced under a Citizens’ Committee to start a back-to-work campaign after the strike closed the Bethlehem Steel Plant, leaving the town devoid of industry. Some plants also had slowdown strikes, although it is unclear which plants, or when in the campaign. The strikers at these plants would then form a picket line in the hopes of preventing the plant from reopening, a tactic that tended to succeed, as other workers would often refuse to cross a picket line. In response to the strikers, many companies closed their plants. By the 28th, there were 80,000 strikers at steel plants nationwide, 46,000 of who were from Republic Steel. SWOC called a national strike on some of the Little Steel companies starting on May 26. As a result, workers at many plants were less supportive of SWOC, and more hesitant to devote themselves to SWOC’s unionization campaign. However, SWOC was unable to devote as many resources to supporting and organizing workers at steel mills nationwide as they did at those plants they considered to be particularly critical. Because so many workers were unhappy with their working conditions, SWOC was often able to organize them easily. In so doing, SWOC was able to create a strong support network among these plants. SWOC sent over 400 organizers to steel plants around the country, particularly large plants in Chicago, Youngstown, and Canton, as well as to mills where there was a history of organization. Steel contract, it did not meet any of SWOC’s other demands, particularly the demand of a formal contract.Īt this point, SWOC, under the leadership of President Philip Murray, started a large-scale campaign to organize the steel industry. Although it adopted the same wage and hour provisions specified in the U.S. However, Little Steel, under the leadership of Tom Girdler, president of Republic Steel, refused to sign the agreement, or any other, or to recognize any union. SWOC anticipated Little Steel-a group of companies including Youngstown Sheet & Tube, Republic Steel, Inland Steel, Bethlehem Steel, National Steel, American Rolling Mills, and some smaller companies-to follow suit. The contract granted a standard pay, an eight-hour workday, and time-and-a-half pay for overtime work. Steel that ended the industry’s formal hostility to unions and labor contracts. Lewis, national leader of the CIO, announced the results of a contract they had been negotiating with U.S. From the outset, the steel industry, opposed to unionization, placed advertisements in newspapers nationwide against the unions to discourage their employees from getting involved. The goal of the organization was to get a signed contract and union recognition for workers at steel plants across the United States. In June of 1936, the national Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) formed the Steel Workers’ Organizing Committee (SWOC) to organize an industry that had traditionally been nonunionized.
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