The Last Great Strike

THIS DAY IN HISTORY:MAY 28, 1937

THIS DAY IN HISTORY:MAY 28, 1937

Police Ignore the Right to Picket On May 28, 1937, an orderly column numbering between 700 and 1000 people marched on Republic Steel’s South Chicago Works. The march was led by a woman, a bicyclist, and a man named "Dominic Esposito," who was carrying an American flag. A block from the mill gate, the marchers met a “force of club-swinging policemen.” When the marchers tried to continue to the mill gate, the police broke a club over Esposito’s head and then laid into the other

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY: MAY 1937

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY: MAY 1937

Companies Spend Obscene Amounts to Defeat Steelworkers In May 1937, the steel companies moved quickly to prepare for a looming strike. Youngstown Sheet & Tube contemplated spending “several million dollars” to defeat the union (one million in 1937 dollars would be nearly seventeen million today . . . so "several million dollars" could be upwards of sixty-eight million). By May, the company had already set aside $550,000 to address such "contingencies" (in today's dollars, th

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: MAY 11, 1937

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY: MAY 1937

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY: MAY 1937

As Possibility of Strike Looms, Steel Companies Prepare for War By May 5, 1937, with a steel strike looming, the sheriff of Mahoning County, Ohio (where Youngstown is located) had sworn in 214 deputies. Fifty-seven were on Republic Steel’s payroll and 114 on Sheet & Tube's. Between May 6 and May 25, he swore in another 168 of the companies’ employees as deputies. Meanwhile, Republic shipped over $16,000 worth of munitions, mainly gas weapons, to the sheriff’s department; this

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY: MARCH 1937

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY: MARCH 1937

Big Steel Signs Historic Agreement, Guarantees Steelworkers Basic Rights Seventy-nine years ago, in early March, 1937, U.S. Steel Corporation signed a historic collective bargaining agreement with the nascent Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC). The agreement provided for a standard pay scale, an 8-hour work day, and time and a half for overtime. Legend has it that company men removed a portrait of U.S. Steel's director, Henry Frick, from the room where the agreement wa

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