The Great Steel Strike and its LessonsFoster, William Z.
History
The Great Steel Strike and its Lessons
Foster, William Z.
Steel Strike, U.S., 1919-1920; United States Steel Corporation
Much of the success in these localities was due to the thoroughly
systematic way in which the organizing work was carried on. This merits
a brief description. There were two classes of organizers in the
campaign, the floating and the stationary. Outside of a few traveling
foreign speakers, the floating organizers were those sent in by the
various international unions. They usually went about from point to
point attending to their respective sections of the newly formed local
unions, and giving such assistance to the general campaign as their
other duties permitted. The stationary organizers consisted of A. F. of
L. men, representatives of the United Mine Workers, and men hired
directly by the National Committee. They acted as local organizing
secretaries, and were the backbone of the working force. The floating
organizers were controlled mostly by their international unions; the
stationary organizers worked wholly under the direction of the National
Committee.
Everywhere the organizing system used was the same. The local secretary
was in full charge. He had an office, which served as general
headquarters. He circulated the National Committee's weekly bulletin,
consisting of a short, trenchant trade-union argument in four languages.
He built up the mass meetings, and controlled all applications for
membership. At these mass meetings and in the offices all trades were
signed up indiscriminately upon a uniform blank. But there was no "one
big union" formed. The signed applications were merely stacked away
until there was a considerable number. Then the representatives of all
the trades were assembled and the applications distributed among them.
Later these men set up their respective unions. Finally, the new unions
were drawn up locally into informal central bodies, known as Iron and
Steel Workers' councils. These were invaluable as they knit the movement
together and strengthened the weaker unions. They also inculcated the
indispensable conception of solidarity along industrial lines and
prevented irresponsible strike action by over-zealous single trades.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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