_ The Steelworkers — a great industrial union

Our new union combines roots deep within the North American Labour Movement

WHEN IWA MEMBERS joined forces
with the Steelworkers on September 1,
2004 they became part of the ongoing
history of one of Canada’s and North
America’s greatest industrial unoins.

Although today the United
Steelworkers of America are a huge inter-
national union (the project of a series of
major mergers — including the most
recent with IWA Canada), the union’s
early roots in Canada trace back to the ear-
liest struggles of miners and steel mill
workers.

In 1936 the Congress of Industrial
Organizations founded the Steel Workers
Organizing Committee (SWOC) in the
United States (under the leadership of
Phillip Murray), which reached into
Canada. Much like the IWA’s predeces-
sor union, the International
Woodworkers of America (also a CIO
union formed in 1937) the SWOC
aossed international boundaries in its
struggle to bring industrial unionism to
North American workers.

The SWOC first set up in the Labour
Temple in Hamilton where it would lead
the struggle to organize in steel mills.
like the IWA in British Columbia’s
monumental 1946 strike, the United
Steelworkers (who were formed in May

1942) struck the Steel Company of
Canada (Stelco) in Hamilton in the same
year, establishing union recognition.
Union members on the picket line

fought the company’s herding of over
1,000 scabs.

In Canada, the Steelworkers’ have
roots in Quebec and, as mentioned
before, the Maritimes. In 1957 the
union fought a famous 7 month strike
against the Gaspe Copper company in
Murdochville, Quebec. An earlier strike
in 1953 established the union in north-
ern Ontario and Quebec.

The SWOC’s earliest Canadian certi-
fication however, was in Nova Scotia
with the company that would become
Sydney Steel. In 1940 an independent
union at Algoma Steel in Sault Ste.
Marie would join the SWOC as the
union reached out to also organize
workers in small operations.

In 1944 the Aluminum Workers of
America joined the USWA, bolstering
the union’s membership, mainly south
of the line, with about 20,000 members.

In 1967 the International Union of
Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers
merged with the Steelworkers, adding
30,000 workers to the union and bring-
ing in notable local unions in Sudbury,

Ontario (Locals 6500 and 6600) and
Trail, B.C. (Locals 480 and 9705).

In 1971 the United Stone and Allied
Product Workers merged with the
USWA, injected some 20,000 mem-
bers. A year later District 50 of the Allied
Technical Workers of America added
about 172,000 members in a wide vari-
ety of industries and services.

In 1985 the Upholsterers International
Union of North America merged, bring in
35,000 members. Ten years later the pow-
erful United Rubber, Cork, Linonleum
and Plastic Workers of America became
Steelworkers when some 90,000 workers
voted to merge. A year later about 40,000
members of the Aluminum, Brick and
Glass Workers Union went with the
USWA.

Then in 1999, 5,000 Canadian work-
ers merged when the Canadian
Division of the Transportation
Communications International Union
voted in favour.

The last major merger, before the
IWA, was the American Flint Glass
Workers Union which came into the
USWA last year when 12,000 members
went on board.

With the USWA-IWA merger the
Steelworker become Canada’s largest

private sector union with some 245,000
members in three Canadian Districts.

They are: District 6 (Ontario and the
Maritimes); District 5 (Quebec) and
District 3 (Western Canada). The IWA
adds a new dimension to the
Steelworkers’ membership.

In District 3 the Steelworkers’ mem-
bership bumps up to some 55,000
members, making it a significant player
in Canada. Ex-IWA locals boost District
6’s membership to over 100,000.

As part of the USWA, forestry, wood
and paper will become the largest man-
ufacturing sector in the country — with
some 37 per cent of the total
Steelworkers’ membership.

Of particular importance to
Steelworker locals with membership in
the forestry, wood and paper sector, the
USWA and PACE (the Paper, Allied-
Industrial, Chemical and Energy
Workers’ International Union) have
formed a “Strategic Alliance” to share
knowledge and resource and coordinate
activities and programs including col-
lective bargaining and organizing.

With the former IWA as part of the
Steelworkers, the USWA-PACE alliance
has some 175,000 workers in the
forestry, wood and paper sectors.

USWA FILE PHOTOS

SOME IMAGES OF THE
USWA IN CANADA
OVER THE DECADES

= Clockwise from top left: from
1936-1942, the Congress of
Industrial Organizations
organized under the auspices of
the Steel Workers’ Organizing
Committee. Seen above is the
committee’s Hamilton office in
the early 40’; the 1946 Stelco
strike in Hamilton was a
watershed for the USWA,
establishing union recognition
by the company; the
Steelworkers organized Radio
Shack outlets in 1979 ina
national campaign which won
certifications; Steelworkers hit
the bricks at Inco in Sudbury in
1997; USWA’ers from across
Canada marched against wage
and price controls in the mid-70s
and the Mine, Mill and Smelter
Workers’ Union merged with
Steel in ‘67.

SEPTEMBER 2004 THE ALLIED WORKER | 13