The Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) was one of two precursor labor organizations to the United Steelworkers. It was formed by the CIO (Committee for Industrial Organization) on June 7, 1936. It disbanded in 1942 to become the United Steel Workers of America. The Steel Labor was the official paper of SWOC.
Early union organizing in steel
A wide variety of unions had formed in the brand-new steel industry in the 1900s. Local steel unions formed in steel mills here and there, but no national organization existed.
The Long Depression of 1873–79 forced a number of unions to merge in order to survive. In 1876, the Sons of Vulcan (a puddlers union), the Iron and Steel Heaters Union (a union of workers who operated roughing and rolling machines, and who acted as catchers for still-hot rolled steel), the Iron and Steel Roll Hands Union (another union of roughers, rollers and catchers) and the Nailers Union (riveters) merged to form the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (the AA).
The AA was a founding member of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (FOTLU) and its successor, the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
While the AA had a good degree of success organizing steel workers, it also had some significant failures. In 1892, the union fought and lost the Homestead strike, which nearly bankrupted the union and cost it a majority of its members. It attempted a recognition strike at U.S. Steel in 1901, which also failed and cost the union most of its members in that influential company. It engaged in a strike in 1919 for which it was ill-prepared and which was broken during the Red Scare.
AFL attempts to organize in steel
By mid-1933, the AA was almost moribund. Union president Michael F. Tighe, 76, was referred to as "Grandmother" due to his advanced age and timidity, and he suspended locals that called for aggressive action.
Passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) on June 16, 1933, sparked widespread union organizing throughout the country, even in the steel industry. The AA's membership rose to more than 150,000 by February 1934 (although most had not become dues-paying members).
In 1934, an opposition group known as the Rank and File Movement formed within the AA. A number of militant local affiliates had sprung up across the nation or had joined existing lodges in large enough numbers to elect their own, militant leaders. The locals coalesced into the Rank and File Movement and challenged the conservative leadership to act, demanding that the AA reorganize along industrial union lines.
At its annual convention in San Francisco in October 1934, the AFL called for an organizing campaign in the steel industry. As early as 1926, AFL president William Green had convinced the federation's executive council to re-establish federal labor unions (FLUs) as a compromise between workers' desires to belong to an industrial union and the jurisdictional rights of existing AFL affiliates. The FLU had been one of Samuel Gompers' favorite recruiting devices. All workers in a plant were recruited into a single union. Theoretically, after organizing in an industry was complete, the FLUs would be broken up and the workers parceled out to the appropriate craft union. Although a number of AFL affiliates protested the use of FLUs, Green put them off — declaring that the FLUs were but temporary organizing devices.
The AFL seemed committed to organizing with FLUs, and to organizing the steel industry. Between 1932 and 1934, the number of FLUs had risen to 1,798 from 307.
But no organizing drive in steel emerged. The AFL executive council meeting in January 1935 considered organizing steel workers into FLUs, but only Green and two other vice presidents supported the plan. Green pointed out to the council that the AA had no resources to organize new members, and was philosophically opposed to organizing any but skilled workers. But the council refused to authorize an AFL-led organizing drive. Instead, the council voted to initiate a joint organizing drive similar to the failed 1919 campaign.