Little Steel strike

Early in 1937 the large American steel companies ("big steel") were facing union pressure. The success of several sit down strikes in the automobile industry and the rising strength of unions made US Steel chairman Myron C. Taylor very hesitant to confront the unions. The pressure from other union successes throughout the industry and also the persistent work of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) made Taylor decide to agree with CIO president John L. Lewis to recognize the newly created branch of the CIO, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC), as the sole agent for his company on March 2, 1937. By signing the union contract, Taylor started a domino effect, and other steel companies began signing union contracts with very little fight, many just at the slightest rumor of a strike. Several steel companies, who held very strong anti-union, anti-labor stances, such as Jones and Laughlin, The achievements gave SWOC and the CIO the confidence to expand into the smaller-market Little Steel Industry. After Jones & Laughlin signed union contracts, signing with the smaller steel producers ("little steel") became the next goal of the CIO. The three main targets were decided to be Republic Steel, Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company, and Inland Steel Corporation, which owned mills across the Midwest and Northeast United States, with close to thirty mills between the three of them. The three companies became the focus of the CIO from status that they held within the Little Steel industry, like that of US Steel in the Big Steel industry, powerhouses of their industry. After big steel unionized, Lewis immediately tried to convince these little steel companies to sign SWOC union contracts similar to those signed by US Steel, just weeks earlier. The hope was to hit the powerhouses early in the movement to send a message throughout the industry for negotiations with smaller companies. However, the three companies refused the contracts without hesitation, as they had withstood unionization before, and refused to sign with SWOC. ==Organization==

. After the contracts were rejected, CIO and SWOC immediately began planning to organize the smaller steel companies. The SWOC had two major ideas behind their organizing drive: "overcoming, by successfully organizing all groups of workers, the racial and ethnic conflicts that had crippled earlier efforts to organize steel workers; and infiltrating and co-opting the company unions." It was due to the black support that the SWOC was able to gain momentum so quickly, allowing whole mills to be involved in the movement. As May approached, it was clear that the companies were preparing for a strike. Republic Steel fired many union supporters and conducted lockouts at several other locations as a way weaken union support. It was then that the CIO and SWOC decided they must take action. A deadline of May 26, 1937 was given to the steel companies to sign the union contracts or endure a strike. After that day passed with no response from Little Steel, John L. Lewis made an official strike call and workers walked away from their positions just hours after the deadline, shutting down almost every mill of the three largest Little Steel companies. ==Early phase==

Within hours of the call, there was already a quicker start than most people had predicted. Union representatives were able to lay down enough groundwork and spread the word well enough for a seamless beginning to the strike across a total of eight states. Workers began picketing, marching, and holding rallies outside their respective mills trying to gain the support of those workers not already involved with the union, along with their local communities to add pressure on the companies by adding supporters. The majority of the mills were empty after the massive walkout on May 26 and unable to continue production. However, two Republic Steel mills in Youngstown, Ohio and the Southside of Chicago remained open, using around two hundred to three hundred workers who disapproved of the strike to keep the mills running. SWOC officials and striking steel workers targeted the mill in South Chicago with massive numbers of picketers and rallies, hoping to bring national attention and make keeping the mill open a nightmare for Republic Steel. ==Steelworkers' resistance==

At the beginning of the strike, more than 50% of the striking employees were from Republic Steel. Republic Steel was headquartered in Cleveland and was among the top five steel producers in the country. By 1942 Republic Steel housed 9,000 Republic had long been anticipating a strike and fortified the factory. There were loyal employees stationed there around the clock. There was a stockpile of munitions, including poison gas. That Memorial Day, there were approximately 250 city police and twenty to thirty private police forming a defensive perimeter around the plant. They were armed with revolvers, nightsticks, blackjacks, and hatchet handles. Scores of club-wielding police were beating people, men and women, black as well as white, and firing gas weapons and firearms, striking down dozens. With both local police forces and the National Guard on the side of Little Steel, the situation deteriorated for the strikers after the events of the Memorial Day massacre. The events of the massacre turned what seemed to be a peaceful strike of picketing and the occasional rally march into five months of arrests, beatings and several more deaths across the Midwest and Northeast as more conflicts emerged between Little Steel (mostly Republic Steel) and the SWOC protesters. Other confrontations The Republic Steel mill in Youngstown, Ohio, one of the two mills to remain open, had a conflict just less than a month later. On June 19, 300 officers were working at the mill, and a large number of picketers were outside of mill property. After a woman made a comment that embarrassed one of the officers on patrol duty about how to do his job correctly, things escalated quickly, leading to gas canisters to be fired directly into the crowd of protesters. A massive riot then ensued, the "Women's day massacre", leading to a gunfight between the heavily armed officers and the protesters that lasted well into the night leaving dozens injured and two dead. Many were arrested after the event, many of which were through home raids of those who were prominent in the strike in the area. discussed above, and Eleanor Rye, a journalist for a prominent black newspaper and one of a handful of black women organizers, became important players in the 1937 Little Steel Strike. Women in the trenches The Little Steel Strike unfolded at a time when few married women held regular jobs outside the home. Nevertheless, women played a meaningful role in the conflict. They walked picket lines, led marches, and risked life and limb to press the union's cause. Three days before the Memorial Day Massacre, for instance, a woman was one of three people leading a column of some 700 to 1000 people to a Republic Steel plant in Chicago, Illinois. On the day of the Massacre, moreover, ten to fifteen percent of the marchers were women. Two of them, Tillie Brazell and Catherine Nelson, were shot in the legs by company agents. The very next month, at Republic's "Stop 5" gate in Youngstown, Ohio, on Women's Day, on the picket line, some fifteen women were demonstrating when a belligerent city police captain reproached them, as women, for doing so. Moments later, the same officer started a violent confrontation that ultimately turned deadly. At least seven women were injured, four of them by gunfire. ==Afterward==

With so many of the unionists on strike being killed, beaten and arrested, the protesters quickly lost morale and motivation to continue with the strike. Protesters knew that even on a day that seemed quiet, violence could explode at any minute over the most insignificant cause, and many could no longer risk their lives for the cause of the SWOC. As one protester put it, "They imported weapons, bombs, and what-have-you and had them all set though the plants with mounted machine guns, threatening, in case something would happen that they would kill thousands of us." As police and the National Guard began enforcing court orders to vacate, the weakened and demoralized picket lines began to crumble, and after five months, the "Little Steel" Strike finally came to an end. However the failure of the strike was not solely from violence, well-organized public relations, or the failing morale of the strikers. Right before the Little Steel strike began, the economy had slipped back into a slight depression, causing less demand for steel. Fewer employees were needed to satisfy the decreased demand. The SWOC was not able to use lost profits as a bargaining tool. It was aggressive strike breaking tactics from Little Steel, lack of organization from SWOC, and demoralized unionists that made the strike end by the end of the summer of 1937 with the companies victorious. ==Results==

Immediately after the collapse of the strike, the Little Steel companies reopened all the mills affected. That sent a message that they had clearly won and were returning to business as usual. The Little Steel companies fired and blacklisted any worker associated with the strike. Youngstown striker Danny Thomas, a leader at one of Sheet & Tube’s plants there, recalled: "There was a group of us that was blackballed to the point that we couldn’t secure any positions or work anywhere. No one would give us a job, credit, or anything." ==World War II==

For several years, the Little Steel conflict seemed to settle down, workers returned to work, but the SWOC was not satisfied with the results of all their effort and eventually took their case all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court then upheld the National Labor Relations Board’s ruling and told Little Steel to begin collective bargaining. By 1942, the economy had recovered due to the war. The demand for steel was higher than it had been in years, leading to Little Steel to begin hiring workers by the thousands, and SWOC saw its opportunity to pounce on the desperate Little Steel industry. Rumor of another strike began to circulate, making Little Steel owners extremely nervous because of the high government pressure to maintain production for the war effort and because of the risk of lost profits and lost contracts due to slowdowns. The National War Labor Board attempted to persuade Little Steel to accept the terms of unionization. Little Steel management surrendered instantly. Republic Steel was even forced to pay twenty million dollars' worth of back pay to those blacklisted in 1937. At last, Little Steel became unionized. ==See also==

• Brooks, Robert R. R. As steel goes ... Unionism in a basic industry (Yale UP, 1940) online • {{cite journal • Clark, Paul F. et al. eds. Forging a Union of Steel: Philip Murray, SWOC, and the United Steel Workers (ILR Press, 1987). • Cook, Philip L. "Tom M. Girdler and the Labor Policies of Republic Steel Corporation." Social Science (1967): 21-30 online • • Leab, Daniel J. "The Memorial Day Massacre." Midcontinent American Studies Journal 8.2 (1967): 3-17. online • {{cite journal • Watkins, Angela. Massillon Steel: The 1937 Columbia Heights Massacre, (2025, Independently Published). ISBN: 9798285696841. • {{cite book ==External links==