The world-wide depression of the 1930s resulted in dramatically changed labor-management relations in the Valley.  The National Recovery Act of 1933 encouraged union recognition and union bargaining in an effort to avoid strikes and keep people working.  Local steel companies preferred to expand employee representation committees.  But the Wagner Act and the creation of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in 1935 said that if a majority of workers voted in favor of a union, then the company had to recognize and bargain with that union. 

In 1936, Tom Girdler, head of Republic Steel, said he would rather “quit the steel business and grow apples” than sign an agreement with the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO), and Youngstown Sheet & Tube agreed.  The Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC) called a strike against the Little Steel companies (Inland Steel, Republic, and Sheet & Tube) on May 26, 1937. 

Mill owners had a strategy to break the union with arsenals, private police, and a promotional campaign.  They also had “armed men, apparently well equipped with tear gas, rifles and even a few machine guns, stationed on the roofs of downtown buildings.”  When the owners brought in replacement workers to keep the mills running, strikers picketed plants to keep out employees and supply trains.  -owners used planes to air-drop supplies.  Finally on June 19, 1937 the confrontation exploded into violence at Stop 5 on Poland Avenue as police battled pickets, leaving 2 dead and 14 injured.   

Ohio Governor Davey called in the National Guard, and mediation resulted in the strikers going back to work, but they still had no union.  By 1938, the NLRB ruled that the companies had violated a number of provisions of the Wagner Act and they had to re-hire fired workers and allow a vote on unionization.  In 1942 the Little Steel companies recognized the National Steelworkers of America as the bargaining agent for the steel mill employees.

Have you ever used mediation to solve a problem?  If your class organized, what would you petition for?  (longer recess? better cafeteria food?)  Why do you think mill owners didn’t want unions?  Why did the workers want them?  To learn more about the steel industry in our Valley, visit the Arms Family Museum of Local History or www.mahoninghistory.org.  you can also access these images on the web site by clicking on ‘Education,’ then click on ‘What Do You Know’ for a list of articles.  Each article has small images you can click on to enlarge or download.